The first trailer for the third movie “Clerks” was released only on July 6, 2022. Sixteen years after “Clerks 2” and almost 30 years after the release of the first movie “Clerks”, which started it all, “Clerks 3” is finally on the way.
Scheduled for release later this year, the Q&A Master will take Clerks III on a field trip to visit every Kevin Smith fanatic across the country. In the movie, we’ll see the gang shooting their own clerk-style movie in which Randal faces death and tries his hand at one of his passions, and these 10 callbacks from the trailer will only add to the excitement.
Familiar cast
Many actors from the 1994 film returned. In the trailer, viewers see the main characters Dante and Randal, played by Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson, respectively. Jason Muse and Smith himself are back as Jay and Silent Bob — they will never stop hanging out with Quick Stop. Rosario Dawson returns as Becky, and Trevor Ferman will reprise his role as Elias, a colleague of the Mubi gang in Clerks II. Newcomer Austin Zajiur (“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”) will also play with the funny name “Blockchain Coltrane”.
Although Scott Schiaffo is not featured in this trailer, he will return as the important character “Representative Chewlies Gum” from “Clerks”. Marilyn Guillotti, who played Veronica, Dante’s friend, who gave lasagna, will also return.
The cameo is packed
Unsurprisingly, Clerks III is full of cameos. Smith’s films are known for their cameos: Carrie Fisher played a taxi driver nun in “Jay and Silent Bob”, Alanis Morisette played God in “Dogma” and Stan Lee as himself giving advice in “Garbage Rats”. The trailer shows longtime friend and collaborator Ben Affleck, with whom he worked on films such as “Jersey Girl” and “Chasing Amy.” It looks like he’s auditioning for a Randall movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Fred Armisen.
Comedians Amy Sedaris, dressed as a witch in the hospital, and Michelle Buteau (Always Be Mine, maybe) were also seen. Another co-writer, Justin Long, plays doctor Randall, who played lawyer Brandon in the underrated films “Zack and Miri make Porn” and “Jay and Silent Bob: Reboot.”
“I shouldn’t even be here today!”
All the listeners repeat a very similar turn of phrase: “I shouldn’t even be here today!” This iconic phrase appears several times in “Clerks”, as the film begins with Dante being called to work on his day off. Throughout the movie, as his day gets crazier and crazier, he exclaims it after every inconvenience.
Since this is exclaimed by the audience, it means that Randall’s film will be very similar to the well-known movie “Clerks”. No stranger to meta, at one point in the trailer Smith pokes fun at himself, forcing Randall to claim that sequels are for hackers, so it looks like a ride filled with cheeky winks from the audience.
Original quick stop
Clerks II saw Dante and Randal go from clerks at a convenience store, presumably fired after the riots that occurred in the original, to clerks at a fast food store. Most of the first sequel took place in the fictional Mooby’s, a burger joint. Dante and Randal buy a Quick Stop at the end, and in this movie they are back to where they started in “Clerks”, only now they run this place.
The real QuickStop grocery stores are located in Leonardo, New Jersey, and are now part of movie history, and thousands of people make the pilgrimage to buy a pack of cigarettes or use the damn employee restroom. In Kevin Smith’s legends, he was mentioned by characters in pursuit of Amy and again featured in the films “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and “Clerks 2”.
Mubi The Golden Calf
Mubi’s sacred mascot is Mubi’s Golden Calf, and he can be seen dancing with Jay, Silent Bob, and two of Mubi’s current employees near the end of the trailer. The fictional chain restaurant is where Smith introduced fans to Becky Rosario Dawson and Trevor Ferman’s Elias in Clerks 2.
Although it’s not a real chain, Mooby’s has had several real pop-ups with real hamburgers over the past few years. The next one will take place at Comic-Con in San Diego from July 21 to 24.
Black and white
There are glimpses of the film that Randal is shooting as black and white. This is due to the fact that, as Smith confirmed, they are creating a meta-version of “Clerks” called “Inconvenience” — the tentative title of the first film “Clerks”. The original was shot in black and white, not as a pretentious aesthetic choice, but as a necessity.
Working on a tight budget, as Smith maxed out multiple credit cards and used insurance money from the full machine to finance the project, black and white film was cheaper to buy. Therefore, it is appropriate that Randal’s film is aesthetically similar. Their budget is almost certainly also meager.
