But this being “View Askew,” while this event easily was the most typically “Hollywood” of the Kevin Smith premiere events I have attended (1999’s Dogma event and 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back bash) in terms of location, size, and flair, there was a little twist. The quickly-filled Dome lobby was convincing visual evidence of the overbooked guest list, but the crowd was not heavily filled with famewhoring C- and D-listers who snagged a ticket hook-up by way of aggressive publicists; most of the faces were that of less-recognizable crew, cast, View Askew staffers, and friends. As trippy as it was to witness a sequel to Clerks to get a glitzy event treatment, it was fitting and refreshing to see that the capacity audience was no parade of party-hopping Us Weekly glamazons.

MSNBC – “Clerks II will more than satisfy Smith fans” (**CONTAINS SPOILERS**)

“…You’ll be shocked to learn that Dante and Randal are still doing the exact same thing: standing around all day at their menial jobs, finding ways to avoid work, and talking. And talking and talking. They’re just doing it in color instead of black and white”.

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Comic Book Resources – “Interview: Kevin Smith”

What was the genesis for the creation of this sequel?

I don’t! [laughs] I don’t know. I could point to any number of things. I really wanted to tell a story about what I thought it felt like it was like to be in my 30s. I tried to do that with “Jersey Girl,” and I think to some degree I think I was kind of successful in what I wanted to do, but at the same time it’s a movie that’s a bit manipulative and a bit mawkish and what not. So, I wanted to do a version of what I felt what it was like being in my 30s that was a little more in touch with reality, which is odd because this movie does have a donkey show at its epicenter. [laughs] So, that’s part of it and I thought that “Clerks” was a movie about what I felt it was like to be in my 20s, so I could use Dante and Randal as the way in and suddenly it became “Clerks II.”

I talked about doing the movie back in ‘98. In the tail end of the “Dogma” credits it says, “Jay & Silent Bob will return in ‘Clerks II: Hardly Clerking.’” Then I was like, “You know what man? Maybe I shouldn’t fuck with the sacred cow. Do a sequel to the first film? What if it sucks and people retroactively go back and hate on the first film. Perhaps it’s not the way to go.” And it became “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” instead. But all the ideas were there. The groundwork had been laid in my head, so that Dante and Randal story was always in the background. I figured one day I’d just do it in comic book form or something like that. Then, when I thought about telling the story, about what it’s like to be in my 30s, I was like, “Shit, that’s the story. It’s all coming together. It’s gelling.”

Some people online have said it’s obviously a reaction to “Jersey Girl,” the film didn’t do well and he went back to the well and he’s retrenching. They’ve missed the target, but hit the tree. “Jersey Girl” played a role, but it wasn’t that because I was already dialed into doing “Clerks II” while we were still working on “Jersey Girl.” While working on “Jersey Girl” I was just like, “Man, next movie I don’t want to work with famous people. I don’t want to work with celebrities. I want to work with unknowns. I don’t want to fucking worry about ‘In Touch Weekly’ or ‘Us Weekly’ putting them on their cover every fucking week.” It’s weird when you spend like two years of your life trying to put together and tell a story and then when you sit down to talk about it nobody wants to talk about the story, they just want to ask, “Did you see the pink diamond? Is it huge?” And I’m like, “Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with anything, man?” When the back story overshadows the story, it’s just not cool anymore. As a storyteller it’s kind of insulting. Either the movie is as bad as you say and you have nothing to talk about except these two, or you find these two more fascinating than the movie we put together. Either way you’re kind of screwed.

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Canmag – “Clerks II Racism” (**CONTAINS SPOILERS**)

“…That didn’t make it any easier for Jeff Anderson to perform the scene. “The weird thing, it’s like you’re going through the script and you’re reading the script, and you’re trying to memorize your dialogue,” said Anderson. “It’s like when you’re in the moment you have to get into that scene, your brain is telling you the whole time, ‘No, no, no, no, you don’t say this,’ but it is what it is.”

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About.com – “Trevor Fehrman Talks About Clerks II”

“…How I came up with this character… all I can say is a couple of the mannerisms came from a couple people I know. It’s sort of a cross between my friend Paul from Long Beach who’s like the best guy in the world, but people always think that I’m describing him as stupid. He’s not stupid. He’s smart. He’s an amazing drummer. He’s just one of those guys who’s very single-minded. He completely thinks something through before he moves onto the next thing. He does stuff in order. So whenever you explain something to Paul, he does this look where he goes like, ‘Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I got you dawg.” So there’s a little bit of that in Elias, where he’s trying to wrap his mind around something.”

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WHIOTV – “Kevin Smith Counters Bennifer Disaster With ‘Clerks II’”

“…Fans of the iconic character of Jay will be buzzing over Mewes’ dizzying performance in “Clerks II.” Because of the actor’s burning intensity, Jay is funny — and scary — at the same time.

“There’s an edge to the dude and I think that’s what makes him funny. The fact is, you never know where’s he’s going to go with something,” Smith said.”

Kevin Smith to Lead Q&A following Clerks II Showings

Saturday, July 22nd Writer & Director will be onsite at Mission Valley UltraStar Cinemas!

July 22, 2006 – UltraStar Cinemas, the Exclusive Home of Pure Digital Cinema®, will hold special Q&A sessions with Kevin Smith, the writer & director of Clerks II, following the 3:30 pm, 6:00 pm & 8:15 pm showings at the Mission Valley Cinemas at Hazard Center on Saturday, July 22. All guests in attendance for these shows are invited to stay for the Q&A which will take place immediately following the film.

Clerks II, which will be shown in Pure Digital Cinema®, catches up with the characters from 1994’s Clerks, Dante & Randall, who have now moved on from working at a convenience store to working at a fast-food restaurant.

“We’re thrilled that Mr. Smith will be our guest on Saturday for these special Q&A sessions. We know that the movie-going audience will be out in full-force for the opening of his film and to present the film in Pure Digital Cinema® and have Mr. Smith on-site to speak directly following three prime showtimes is a great bonus for our guests,” stated Jill Rosenow, Director of Special Events & Promotions for UltraStar Cinemas.

Tickets for Clerks II are now available online at www.UltraStarMovies.com or at the UltraStar Mission Valley at Hazard Center box office located at 7510 Hazard Center Drive in San Diego. Guests who purchase their tickets online will receive priority seating.

UltraStar Mission Valley Cinemas at Hazard Center will also have special Clerks II memorabilia, including hats & shirts, available for purchase.

UltraStar Cinemas has recently become the first theater circuit in the country to equip all of their auditoriums with Pure Digital Cinema® powered by DLP Cinema® Technology. Pure Digital Cinema® offers the crispest, clearest motion picture technology available.

Visit www.UltraStarMovies.com for a complete list of locations and showtimes.

Macleans – “Distilling Kevin Smith”

After your bad experience Jersey Girl, are you about to make another Hollywood movie any time soon?

I think it all comes down to what your perception of a Hollywood movie is. The 40 Year Old Virgin is a Hollywood movie, but it doesn’t occur to you that it’s a Hollywood movie. It’s got some edge to it. Same with Wedding Crashers. The parameters are blurred. It’s tough to figure out what’s indie and not indie any more.

Part of Clerks II was taking a break from that, having just made a movie with two of the biggest stars on the planet [Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez]. Even before the movie came out, it was like, man, it’s a bit much. Especially when you’re talking about people who were on the cover of US Weekly every fuckin’ week. You spend two years trying to tell a story, then you talk to the press about it, and most of them are like, “Hey man, have you seen the big, pink diamond?” What does this have to do with anything? Part of that, I guess, is that they didn’t want to talk about the movie and were trying to be polite. The other part is they’re far too wrapped up in the behind the scenes than what’s up front. It was all backstory, and then got progressively worse as we had to fight the ghost of fuckin’ Gigli.

What was it like making a movie with a $10 million star?

It sounds weird but I don’t think actors should be paid that much. And to Ben’s credit on Jersey Girl, he tried to take 15 per cent of the gross, which meant he would be taking the risk — for ever dollar the movie made, he would have gotten 15 cents. But Harvey felt the movie had a chance of earning so he said no to 15 per cent and said, “I’ll give you $10 million up front.” What’s Ben supposed to do, say no? But then that’s $10 million tacked onto the cost of the movie, which wound up costing $35 million and could have easily cost $20 million.

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ComingSoon.Net – Interview: Brian O’Halloran

CS: Is there any room for improvisation when you’re doing a movie like this or any more with the sequel than with the first movie?

O’Halloran: Moreso this one than the first one. The first one was all Kevin’s work and all his movie. It was all of our first attempt at a film, and we didn’t have the film stock to actually take multiple takes of something, so if we went beyond four or five takes of something, you’d actually see the color leave Kevin’s skin, because he was all sweatin’, “We don’t got this type of film to be doin’ these type of takes.” So this time around, being that it’s still a relatively modest budget of just five million in Hollywood terms, it still had the room to take multiple takes on something, so we would get what Kevin would want, and then if we had something we wanted to throw in or try, he would give us the couple takes to do that. And so even in the first read of the first draft of the script, Kevin opened it up to a discussion period afterwards, “So what do you think?” And we had some issues with certain things in the film that we wanted to tweak and make better or just rearrange, that we did by the second and third draft. After twelve years of us living with these characters and portraying them in many different formats, I think the trust level has gone way up for me and Jeff from Kevin, as to what these characters would do or not do.

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JoBlo – Interview: Brian & Jeff

Aren’t we glad they didn’t use the original ending for Clerks?

O’Halloran: Well, I hated the original ending when I first read that stupid script. I was just like, “killing him, what?” And I remember jokingly saying to him back then, “What if we ever wanna do a sequel?” [laughs] And he was like, “Yeah. Real funny there, boy. Put the sweater on and get shot.” I was like, “All right.” He [points to Anderson] always had a problem with the ending, too.

Anderson: I was fine with the ending, but I always felt they should have pulled back to reveal Randall did it. Then Clerks II would be a whole different movie.

O’Halloran: Ten years later, you’ve obviously finished your ten-year sentence. Jersey only giving ten years for murder.

Anderson: That’s the way Clerks II opens, with me coming out of prison with the little box.

O’Halloran: And ripped. Tattooed.

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CinemaBlend – Interview: Kevin Smith

“…I’ve been really lucky in as much as like we built ourselves a little audience. It’s not a big audience, but it’s enough of an audience where it’s kind of easy to get the stuff we do financed. Make no bones about it, this is a business. We can sit here and talk art and storytelling all we want, but it’s a fucking business. When someone else is paying for it it’s definitely a business and no one gives you money unless they’re assured some kind of a return on their investment. Historically we’ve done that. Our movies have never grossed more than $30 million theatrically, but our DVD is very strong. So even though you can’t build a studio system on the movies that we’ve made, someone is making a profit and that’s why they keep giving us money to make flicks. So for that reason I’m beholden to the audience. I love my audience almost more than I fucking love myself which isn’t that difficult, but because of them I got the job and that’s why I continue to work.”

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About.com – “Jeff Anderson and Brian O’Halloran Discuss Clerks II”

“…On Becoming Convinced Clerks II was a Good Idea: Anderson said, “Literally the first day driving to the set I was in a full panic, sweaty mode. One of the smartest things Kevin did was he put an editing bay… We filmed at a location that was adjacent to a Day’s Inn, so we took over rooms at the Day’s Inn in lieu of having trailers. Kevin put an editing suite in there, and was literally editing as we went. About the fourth day into it he called me into the [editing room]. I showed up to the set and I went up to the room and Kevin came out. His hair was all messed up and he looked crazed. I was like, ‘Oh my God, he finally realized we shouldn’t do this,’ and he was like, ‘No, I’ve been up all night editing. Come see what I’ve done.’ I went in and I watched the first day of filming, which was Brian and Rosario [Dawson’s] stuff. It was a scene that I’m in but I just sort of pop in and pop out. I really didn’t watch them film the scene because they were in another room, and in watching the footage together I just really got into it.”

Commentary Featuring Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier – The View Askew boys talked up Road House in the intro to the Clerks X DVD commentary and were subsequently brought on for a go at it. They come prepared with some of the coolest trivia and tidbits on the film and also, for a good portion of the movie, regale us with Daulton/Chuck Norris type lines like, “Daulton doesn’t tea bag, he potato sacks.” Funny shit.

This director’s first film was partially finanaced from a tuition refund and from an auto insurance settlement he received after one of his cars was destroyed in a flood.

This winter, Oni Press returns to licensed comics with a new series based on the smash NBC hit comedy MY NAME IS EARL! For those people who have been living under a rock for the last year, MY NAME IS EARL is the story of Earl Hickey (played by Jason Lee), a former petty criminal who wins the lottery and sets out to right the wrongs he’s committed in his life. With help from his friends and family, Earl works his way through the list he’s compiled of all his misdeeds, making amends and generating a ton of laughs along the way. Helping Earl along on his comedic quest for karmic redemption in the comics is EARL staffer Hunter Covington.

“When we first started talking to Fox about doing EARL comics, Hunter is one of the first names that came up,” Oni Publisher Joe Nozemack explained. “Hunter is the script coordinator for the show, a big comics fan, and the writer of one of my favorite EARL episodes, ‘The Bountyhunter.’ With a resume like that, I knew we had to get him involved in our new adventures of Earl and the gang.”

But Hunter isn’t alone in crossing things off Earl’s list. He’ll be joined by a bevy of comic creators in making the full color adventures of Earl to the comic page. Who? Well, you’ll have to come to the Oni Press panel to find out!