Kevin Smith is working to make sure the new Jay and Silent Bob script will be unpredictable for fans of the characters
Earlier this month, Kevin Smith revealed that he “lost a bet” to his frequent collaborator Jason Mewes and as a result had started writing the script for a third Jay and Silent Bob movie (following Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot). On the latest episode of the Fatman Beyond podcast he hosts alongside writer Marc Bernardin, Smith talked a bit more about the movie we’ll call Jay and Silent Bob 3 for now, saying that he’s working to take the script in unpredictable directions. He also said this Jay and Silent Bob movie might be the next film he makes!
Smith told Bernardin and the fans in attendance, “I’ve been working on not just finishing up (The 4:30 Movie), but working on the next one. I’m writing – I didn’t think I would do it for a long time, but I had an idea and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna follow this and see where it leads’, and it’s led to something that I really enjoy. … I’m writing another Jay and Silent Bob movie. Not surprising, it’s what I do, I guess, but I honestly didn’t think I would do it for – like, we had a plan to do the third Jay and Silent Bob movie when Jay’s daughter Logan was 18, ‘cause then she could play Harley’s daughter in the movie. Harley played Jay’s daughter in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, so Logan would play Jay’s granddaughter and we thought that’d be f*cked up. … But, you know, Mewes was just like, ‘So I gotta wait f*ckin’ ten years to do another movie?’ And I was like, ‘I guess you’re right.’ So I started thinking about this thing and started writing it and I absolutely love it. I’m writing it in the way that I wrote Red State – not that it’s gonna be nearly as good, but any time I know where the movie’s going, that means the audience knows where the movie’s going. And since it’s, I don’t know, the 18th (Jay and Silent Bob movie), probably the audience knows where a lot of it’s gonna go. Any time I feel that way, I just turn the tables and write something completely different. Every time I know what the punchline is, I’m forcing myself to come up with a different punchline, undercut it. So I’m using it as an exercise to kind of sharpen the comedic knives, if you will. I’ve been having a blast doing it. So next year, 2024, is the 30th anniversary of Jay and Silent Bob… ‘cause it’s also the 30th anniversary of Clerks, but I don’t own Clerks… I own Jay and Silent Bob, so we’ll be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jay and Silent Bob, with nice mentions to Clerks, of course. It could be a good time to shoot the flick. This is the best thing I could say about it: it would work even if it wasn’t Jay and Silent Bob, as just a comedy movie. I love what we just did with The 4:30 Movie and it’s an insanely sweet film and it’s got some funny stuff in it, but this (Jay and Silent Bob script) is definitely more like what I have done historically.“
You can watch Smith say that himself in THIS VIDEO.
In addition to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, the Jay and Silent Bob characters have previously appeared in Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks II, and Clerks III. We’ve also seen animated versions of the characters in Clerks: The Animated Series and Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie. Plus they showed up in Scream 3 and there were some Degrassi shenanigans as well. So Smith is right, we definitely have an idea of what to expect from these guys, and it’s cool to hear that he’s trying to throw some curveballs into the new script.
What do you think of the approach Kevin Smith is taking to writing the new Jay and Silent Bob script? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
