Kevin Smith on Book Continuation of Clerks
by THE DEADLINE TEAM
Saturday February 16, 2013


The next iteration of Clerks, based on Kevin Smith’s door-opening 1994 feature film debut, may be a book released chapter by chapter and influenced by reader input, the writer-director-online maven suggests.

Speaking Friday night as part of a panel on “The Future of Online TV” at the Hollywood studio of the “What’s Trending?” online show, Smith said he had been pondering directing a third Clerks movie, then considered instead an online video series.

Now, he said, he would prefer to write a book based on the two central Clerks characters, releasing it chapter by chapter.







Would you consider doing Clerks online?

That's a great question. I've thought about doing stuff like that. Back when I was thinking about how I would do Clerks III and make it interesting for me, because I'm not going to do it for anybody else if I'm not like "Oh my God, this is it! This is all I care about!", I was trying to think of ways to make it more interesting and creative over simply doing a movie.

At one point I considered doing it on Broadway, "Let's do it as a limited run! 6 months!" Then someone told me, "If you do this as a limited run then you wouldn't make any money. In fact you would make people lose money." So that went away.

Then I talked about doing it episodically online, like a web-series. That would kind of be fun for me, you know doing it without the studio. Then I thought about doing it that way and then merging it with something else.





Here is something new that I've never talked about before, so here it is. I want to do Clerks III as a book first by episodic chapters, so as I release it people can look at it and see how it's coming along.

The first chapter would be Dante and Randall meeting in kindergarten and stuff like that, you know things that I can't do in a movie. I want to really get into the minds of every character and I can't do that within 90-minutes. In the book I get to be really artistic with it and if it's in pieces, as opposed to one big fat book, then the audience can influence it as it goes along.

I know some people will be like, "That's ridiculous! It should be your artistic statement!", but my entire career as been about audience interactivity. Without the audience Clerks would have never happened.

So for me to write and release it episodically, and then having people read it chapter-by-chapter and giving feedback would allow me to change direction. People will be like, "Why would you want to do this? You're an artist!", well now I'm a new media artist and new media artists involve the audience. I've been doing that for 20-years at this point anyway and if I'm working on this book version of Clerks III I think it would be kind of fun to be influenced by the audience every step of the way.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/02/video-kevin-smith-clerks-the-future-of-online-tv/

Kevin Smith Has Started Writing Clerks 3, Calls It "The Best Film I'll Ever Make"
by Darren Franich
Mar 8 2013


Fresh from the announcement that Clerks 3 would no longer be a Broadway play, but instead would become his final film as a director — followed thereupon by a counter-announcement that Clerks 3 would be a book first, then a movie — geek overlord Kevin Smith has once again made a mockery of the whole notion of Announcing Things by posting an image of what appears to the title page of the Clerks 3 screenplay.





The image was posted to Smith’s Facebook page, with an accompanying note:

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
20 years ago today, we started shooting CLERKS.
20 years later, with no plan or provocation, I jumped out of bed at 4:20 this morning and started writing CLERKS III.
It’s been like hanging out with old friends.
And after 2 hours of tapping the keys and giggling, I have come to a conclusion…
CLERKS III will be the best film I’ll ever make





EW has reached out to Smith via his preferred medium to see what this means for the Clerks 3 book, not to mention the possibility of a Clerks 3 Playstation 4 RPG which we just invented.

Little is known about the Clerks threequel, although back in December Smith was kind enough to tell EW that — far from being a trilogy-capper along the lines of Return of the Jedi or Back to the Future 3 — the film he’s conceived is “more Cinema Paradiso than anything else.”

So maybe Ennio Morricone will write the score?

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/03/08/clerks-3-kevin-smith/

Exclusive: We Drill Jason Mewes on Clerks III
by Alyse Wax
June 13, 2013


So you know I have to ask: what is the status of Clerks III?

Kevin [Smith] is bringing it to the Weinsteins first because they did Clerks and Clerks II, so they get the first look at III. Ideally, if it is possible, we would shoot that in August, but it is not set in stone yet.

The script is done and Kevin is thinking about cast and waiting to hear back from the Weinsteins.





Can you give me any dirt on Clerks III?

[Laughs] I’m not just saying it because it is Kevin and me, but the script is really awesome. It would really be an amazing finish to the Clerks trilogy. You laugh, you cry, there is some genius stuff in there.

I can’t tell you, because he would kill me. He has only let eight people read it, and he won’t let the script leave the house. You have to go over to his house to read it. Hopefully it will be Elias from Clerks II, then Dante, Randall, Jay and Bob.... there is some really good stuff in it.

I am really excited.

http://www.fearnet.com/news/interview/exclusive-we-drill-jason-mewes-vigilante-diaries-and-clerks-3