So production on “Clerks 2″ has been pushed back to a September start, to allow me to head up to Vancouver this week for the two month and change “Catch & Release” shoot.

Beyond that, everything’s locked-and-loaded with the flick. The budget’s in place and the cast is almost locked. This move will probably pooch the idea of debuting at Sundance ‘06, but while that would’ve been a poetic move, as Mosier pointed out, it’s not like it would’ve been a triumphant return or something: we’d already had that moment when we debuted “Chasing Amy” up there in ‘97, after the theatrical crash-and-burn of “Mallrats”.

As per Scott…

“In ‘97, we had nothing to lose. Most folks had written us off after ‘Rats’, and didn’t expect much out of ‘Amy’, so we were able to surprise them. Now? We wouldn’t be regarded as underdogs. We’d be showing up with a flick for which there’s already a bunch of expectation. We don’t really need a film festival to launch this flick, as based on the amount of press we’ve gotten already, it seems like the media will wanna talk about it anyway. So missing Sundance might not be such a bad thing, really.”

That being said, we’re hoping for an early spring debut (I’d like to open in February/March, while kids are still in college), and a possible trip to Cannes in May (in the Director’s Fortnight or Un Certain Regard categories, if not the International Critic’s Week section, where “Clerks” had its Cannes debut), for our international launch.

Anyway, that’s where we stand at the moment.