What Convinced A Hesitant Jeff Anderson To Come Back For Clerks III? [Exclusive]
In Kevin Smith's 1994 breakout comedy hit "Clerks," Gen X slacker and Quick Stop employee Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and his friend Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) — who works at RST Video, the video rental store next door — spend most of their days playing hockey on the Quick Stop rooftop, shooting the s*** about the pop culture they love, and, every so often, actually doing their jobs. By the time we catch up with the pair 28 years later in "Clerks III," not much has changed until, naturally, everything does.
Where 2006's "Clerks II" saw Smith turn the irreverent lens of his View Askewniverse onto the fast food industry, "Clerks III" finds him looking inward. Its story begins with Randal suffering a near-fatal heart attack, an event that inspires him to make a movie about his and Dante's lives at the Quick Stop. The film's inciting incident is, of course, based on Smith's own widely-publicized brush with death in 2018, and the movie Randal, Dante, Jay (Jason Mewes), Silent Bob (Smith), and the rest of the gang make about their lives is, quite literally, the original "Clerks." It's a setup that lends itself to Smith's familiar self-referential comedy style, yet "Clerks III" itself is far more ruminative and melancholic than your average Smith creation.
A decade in the making, "Clerks III" nearly came to pass about a year before Smith's real-life heart attack, only to fall apart after Anderson declined to return as Randal. In an interview with /Film's Ethan Anderton to mark the film's home video release, Anderson shed some light on why he initially passed on the movie and what, exactly, changed his mind.
'We should not press our luck here'
If you know your "Clerks" history, then you're likely already aware that Kevin Smith originally wrote a very different script for the third movie. In its early iteration, Smith's screenplay began with the Quick Stop being destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which causes Randal to have a full-fledged nervous breakdown and unwittingly become the leader of a cult-like community established in the parking lot of a movie theater. It was this version, in particular, that Jeff Anderson wasn't interested in making.
In his and Anderson's interview with /Film, Brian O'Halloran joked, "Jeff is hesitant about doing every 'Clerks' movie. From '94 to 2022, Jeff is hesitant." Anderson didn't disagree with him, admitting that he wasn't all-in on "Clerks II" right away either:
"It always kind of comes back to the same thing. When it came time to do 'Clerks II,' I just felt like 'Clerks' wasn't exactly screaming for a sequel. 'Clerks' sort of became what it became, and I thought, by doing another film, we could only screw it up. I did like the script for 'Clerks II.' I thought it was funny. Decided to just go ahead and do it. And then at the end of 'Clerks II,' I thought, "Okay, we wound this up in a very nice way. We've tied a nice bow on it. We got away with it twice. We should not press our luck here."
Needless to say, Anderson didn't change his mind after reading Smith's early "Clerks III" script. "There was a different version of the script that I didn't think needed to be made," Anderson said, citing the Hurricane Sandy draft Smith had put together, "and I ultimately didn't go forward with it."
'It really struck me as a novel idea'
Where Kevin Smith originally envisioned "Clerks III" as a story about grief (on both an individual and communal level), the version he actually made is all about the zany residents of the View Askewniverse taking stock of their lives. Reviewing the movie for /Film, Danielle Ryan noted that "Clerks III" is more than a nostalgic meta-commentary on Smith's landmark '90s indie flick that doubles as an excuse for the filmmaker to hang out with his old friends ... although it is also that. At its core, however, it's Smith reflecting on his own legacy and embracing a newfound sense of maturity as a filmmaker.
It was this "personal" element, as Jeff Anderson described it, that changed his mind about the whole endeavor:
"I thought the story of it was a cool thing. I don't know that it's ever been done, that somebody has recreated a movie in a movie like this, a 30-year-old movie. It really struck me as a novel idea, and because it was based on Kevin's life, and Kevin was so excited about doing it, that was a much easier sell."
As for the future, Anderson doesn't see "Clerks IV" happening outside of one very specific scenario:
"I long ago said that this would be the last one. However, I've decided, and I pitched this idea to Kevin, that if Randal buries Dante in the pet cemetery and Dante comes back, I'm in. 'Clerks IV,' I'll do it."
Anderson may want to be careful what he wishes for. Considering that Smith is actively planning follow-ups to his horror-thrillers "Red State" and "Tusk," he might just be down for a horror-flavored "Clerks IV" too. In the meantime, you can check out "Clerks III" on DVD, Blu-ray, and On Demand.