During a recent episode of his podcast Smodcast, filmmaker Kevin Smith explained to the audience why the Clerks 3 and Mallrats TV series projects fell apart, and why they shouldn't be worried that the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot film, announced the same day he revealed those others were dead, would suffer a similar fate.
It's been nearly a quarter-century since Smith first introduced the characters of Jay and Silent Bob, who appeared in his debut film Clerks and then recurred in numerous other movies in Smith's shared "View Askewniverse," including Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Stike Back.
They have also been featured in an animated series, an animated feature film, short films, advertisements, and numerous comic books -- which Smith suggests might be where Clerks 3 and the Mallrats 2 feature film script he wrote before developing the concept for television might end up.
"Sooner or later, I will put the scripts out there for Clerks 3," Smith said on the most recent episode of Smodcast (embedded below). A comic book or something like that, so people can see it. And the same thing for Mallrats. Probably Mallrats 2, the movie script, we'll do as a comic book or something like that."
Bringing the concepts to comics would be an interesting move for Smith, who hasn't brought his creator-owned characters to the medium in years. When Jay and Silent Bob had their own miniseries from Oni Press, set between the events of Chasing Amy and Dogma, a chunk of that story was lifted to provide plot movement in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Smith seemed to suggest in the podcast that some of the concepts from the abandoned movies and TV series might find their way onto the screen in future projects as well.
Smith expects to start filming Jay and Silent Bob Reboot by this summer, presumably with an eye toward a 2018 theatrical release.