It’s probably a three-fold reason. First off, I put them away at a time when Jason Mewes (Jay) was so knee-deep in heroin and oxycontin that is became not fun to make those movies any more. And he’s since cleaned up. April 6 he celebrates his two years’ completely-clean-and-sober birthday. So Mewes getting out of drugs certainly helped.

Also, last year I was working on this “Clerks X” DVD, which is a three-DVD set we put out to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “Clerks.” I hadn’t spent that much time with the movie since we were editing it, and I just fell in love with those characters again and was just like, Boy, I would like to make a movie about these guys to see where they were in their lives 10 years later, to see what happens when the angry young man grows up. Also, it became really appealling to shoot a movie with guys who weren’t insane movie stars, whose relationships on and off camera might threaten the box office of our movie or how our movie was perceived. So it was like, Boy, I would like to make a movie with Brian and Jeff again, that would be fun.

And then also I was supposed to be doing “Green Hornet.” I had signed up to do this big, cinematic comic-book adaptation. But once the dust settled from the deal being settled, I was struck by the notion that I’ve never wanted to make one these movies. I like watching these movies, but I never wanted to make one of those movies. The idea of making a $70 million movie, it’s just not your movie anymore. It becomes somebody else’s movie because you’ve got to appease the mainstream because that’s who’s got to show up in order for you to make your money back. You can’t just go after your fan base and the people who traditionally watch your stuff. You have to appeal to a far broader audience. And I just can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that, and I have no interest in doing that because then you start to lose your voice – me, personally, as a filmmaker. Some people can absolutely pull it off. I just don’t think I can.

So rather than think about doing that, I was like, “You know, I would rather make a movie where I have complete complete control, it’s completely in my voice, and I don’t have to worry about a bunch of people showing up to see it because the budget would be so insanely cheap.” So finally I was just like, “Do it. Do ‘Clerks 2.’ Why not ‘Clerks 2′?”

So, you’re working now on “Passion of the Clerks”?

No, we start shooting in the first week of June. That’s the slated start.

Are you going to be sticking with the “Passion of the Clerks” title?

Until Mel Gibson rips it out of our hands, yeah. I’d be shocked if we made it all the way through to theatrical release with that title. The bad thing about the title is that some people have been going, “So it’s a parody film?” Really, it’s not a parody film at all. The title is insanely appropriated for the subject matter once you’ve seen the movie.