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Before he became the pop-culture figure that he is today, Kevin Smith was the director of Clerks.
The low-budget cult film film was lucky enough to get a second movie back in 2006. Though Smith has plans for a third, it looks like the movie isn’t happening any longer.
During a recent Q&A in Fatman on Batman (via ComicBook), Smith explained that the movie can’t move forward because Jeff Anderson—who plays Randal—is not keen on doing the project. Smith explains:
“For a while, one of the clerks did not want to be involved. I wrote the script, he dug the script, he was just like, ‘Yeah, don’t wanna do it.’ It took me years to get him to a place where, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll do this.’ And then it looked like we were moving forward. We had loot for it. $8 million. That was the budget.”
We don’t know any reason as to why Anderson wouldn’t want to be part of the movie. However, Smith is adamant that he can’t make it unless Anderson is onboard.
“I want it so badly but I can’t do it without him, it was written for him. But the Randal part is the whole movie, like it’s Randal’s flick. So unless he changes his mind — if and when he changes his mind, I doubt that’ll happen — then we can kind of move forward. I could never recast it, he is Randal, Jeff Anderson.”
It was said that Smith originally had himself in mind to play Randal, hence Randal always gets the best lines in the films. We don’t know as to why Smith opted to get a reduced role in the film, but everyone still loves him as Silent Bob.
Clerks II ended with Randal and Dante owning the Quick Stop convenience store. We don’t know where Smith would have taken the story, but Anderson has said that he liked the script before. It’s curious on why he’s deciding to back out now.
Hopefully Anderson changes his mind soon about the movie. Otherwise, Smith has said that he is keen on turning the script into a comic instead.
