Storyhunters.com – Still Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today

Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson are signed on to play Dante and Randal, still in the Quick Stop and RST Video infernos (respectively) ten years later. Jason Mewes is slated to resurrect (heh heh … “erect”) Jay, and of course Smith himself will appear as Silent Bob. The title for the film is “The Passion of the Clerks,” which I really hope they change, but hey, whatever. Smith can call it “The Jizz-Moppin’, Cock-Smokin’ Adventures of a Koala-Fish-Mutant-Bird” and I’ll still go.

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About.com – Kevin Smith Set for “The Passion of the Clerks”

Kevin Smith is preparing to bring his “Clerks” characters back to the big screen with the sequel, “The Passion of the Clerks.” Production on the follow-up film is scheduled to begin in January 2005.

Smith wrote the screenplay, which will reunite “Clerks” stars Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson. The film will also feature a reappearance of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith).

Smith told Variety that working on the “Clerks” DVD provided the inspiration for “The Passion of the Clerks.” “It reminded me why I got into the film biz in the first place: to make talky, low-budget comedies. So I wrote this script about the older and not-so wiser Dante and Randal, as they try to deal with a decade of further disillusionment, even less sex and eroding pop culture,” said Smith.

Were you once planning on developing some old negative footage?

We couldn’t find all the negative cuts anywhere, in the Miramax archives, in our archives, in storage. We couldn’t find all our negative trims, so somewhere the Clerks 16mm trims are out there swimming around. And it wasn’t going to be much more. We were going to try to ghost in anything that we didn’t even cut into the very first long cut, but there was probably about three minutes, or not even, maybe two minutes of footage, little in between stuff and what not. Not even full scenes. So we couldn’t find the negative to do it. What we’ve decided to do instead was take the original cut of the movie. When we were done cutting the movie, we did a Super VHS transfer of the movie, a one light transfer. That’s the version of the movie that most people saw at film festivals and that we showed to all the distributors and eventually Miramax.

How did the “Roadside Attractions” bits end up on the Jersey Girl DVD?
They were trying to pull together a deal to put all the “Roadside Attractions” out on DVD, but they couldn’t pull it together. It was a really complicated
process based on the fact that everybody who worked at The Tonight Show were DGA guild people if you shoot a piece. So suddenly, they would have been
paying more for royalties to the DGA and the WGA because nobody gets a single credit.

The guy that I do the “Roadside Attractions” pieces with at The Tonight Show is Andy McElfresh. It’s always been me and Andy McElfresh. But because of the structure of The Tonight Show and their deal with the WGA, every writer gets credited, even though only me and Andy ever worked on it. So that would mean every writer gets a royalty check. Then it becomes cost prohibitive to put this out. Plus, NBC wanted to charge a pretty high rate to put some of that content on the DVD. Can’t quote me on the figure, but it was becoming more and more expensive to do. So Harvey and Jeff [Zucker] came up with this idea like, “Well, let’s see if there’s any interest in them period by putting a few on the Jersey Girl DVD.” And it will also help bridge any Writer’s Guild issues there may be because this is the first time, I guess, something like this is being done. The first time The Tonight Show is throwing out some of their content into this video market to see if anyone’s interested. I guess they have plans down the road to do “best of”s and stuff like that which they haven’t done with the Leno stuff yet.

Are you really planning a longer cut?

I mean, hopefully if this one sells well. Because Miramax has grown accustomed to our stuff doing well on video, but our stuff, like the View Askewniverse
stuff has a real built in audience, kind of cult audience. There’s no guarantees that this Jersey Girl DVD will sell as well as that stuff has. So Miramax
is playing a wait and see thing. If the Jersey Girl DVD does well, then in a year from now, two years from now, they’ll let me release the long cut of the
movie, the cut of the movie that was like two hours and 20 minutes.

What would happen to the extra scenes if that doesn’t happen?
They’ll sit on a shelf until the Jersey Girl 10th Anniversary DVD.

The Smith/Affleck commentary is very personal, with the J-Lo and tabloid stuff, and very funny because of the friendship dynamic. There’s a video interview with Smith and Affleck that shares the same dynamic. Obviously, they’re all part of one group, but split up this time you get double the Smith.

There are several of Kevin Smith’s Jay Leno spots here, which have nothing to do with the movie but are funny. Unfortunately, the behind the scenes piece feels and looks like an EPK. Still, I could listen to Smith talk for days, so with many hours of interview and commentary, this is an easy to own collection.