After plans for Clerks III and a Mallrats sequel/TV series fell through, Kevin Smith announced last year that he’d be revisiting the View Askewniverse with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, a follow-up to 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Production was originally slated to get underway this August, only for the month to come and go, but now comes word from Smith’s co-star Jason Mewes that the project is still moving ahead, and the current plan is to shoot the movie in February 2019.
“If all goes as planned, we’re supposed to start pre-production January, start shooting in February in New Orleans,” states Mewes. “We’re actually looking at places to stay right now… We have the money. We have location. We have the offers out to people… We’re in motion to start pre-production January. February we start shooting. So as long as everything stays on track, yes, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot will be made and I’m very excited because I definitely would love to do one more Jay and Bob movie before, you know, we get super old and too old to hang out with apes and swing from grappling hooks and all that good stuff. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. The script’s super funny and it’ll be a lot of fun. And Kevin throws out all new humor with what’s going on today like with social media and this and that. I’m excited.”
So, things are certainly sounding positive for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, although as Mewes also states, it was at this point that plans for Clerks III fell through when Jeff Anderson rejected the opportunity to return as Randal Graves.
“We were this far with Clerks 3, and when they made the offer—Kevin and I don’t have to worry about this [on Reboot] because we definitely want to do the movie—but they made the offer to Jeff Anderson, and he didn’t want to do it. We still don’t know the exact reason. I would say it was money, but it wasn’t, because, at one point, everyone was so disappointed everyone started throwing—like Brian O’Halloran, me, Kevin—everyone started being like, “Hey, we’ll give you 30% of whatever we’re getting paid.” By the end, I know with the combination of everyone’s [chipping in their] own pay, he must have been offered at least… I’m just saying, it must not have been that. So, I still don’t know what happened; I don’t know why. But we literally were as far as making offers, looking for a place to stay—all that. Then we got a phone call and all of a sudden like, “Hey, it’s not going to happen.” So it was such a bummer.”
So far, beyond Smith and Mewes, the only casting news we’ve had for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is that The Flash stars Grant Gustin, Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh are expected to feature, having worked with Smith on The CW’s DC superhero show.
Via LaughSpin
Originally published November 11, 2018. Updated December 5, 2022.
