Comic-con 2013 is now behind us and with so much news coming out it can take some time devouring everything that was announced. One of the things we haven’t mentioned yet was an update from Kevin Smith on Clerks 3, Kevin attends San Diego everywhere for a fan favourite Q&A panel and this year one of the Hall H audience members asked him what’s up with Clerks.
One if the key issues needing to be resolved before all the main players required for Clerks 3 were happy to be involved again, centred on remuneration shortfalls stemming back to Clerks 2. Fortunately it seems the financial contention of Clerks 2 is out of the way, and a script for Clerks 3 is written.
Originally Smith had envisaged Clerks 3 being made independent of the studio system however based on previous deals between Clerks 2 and the Weinstein’s it appears that the Weinstein Company have first option to make the film. Currently Smith and his crew have finalised three budgets for the film based on different shooting locations and they are simply waiting on a decision from the Weinstein Company to see if the current script and budget will receive a green light. If the studio decided to pass, Smith will have the freedom to shop the film around or make it independently.
In the meantime however not one just to sit back and do nothing by any stretch Kevin and his long-time friend and producer Scott Mosier happened across a bizarre advertisement from a landlord on the gumtree UK web site offering lodging to a tenant willing to dress up in a walrus costume for a few hours each day (no, you didn’t misread that). It seems the person has lived an adventurous life including being lost at sea for a time, with only a walrus as a companion.
Talking about the walrus advertisement on their popular podcast series Smodcast, Smith and Mosier speculated how with some creative tweaking the advertisement makes a great concept for a horror film, so much so in fact the pair decided to run a twitter vote to see what their audience thought. Due to a combination of overwhelming support for the walrus horror film, and some down time while waiting on a decision for Clerks 3 Kevin took to the idea and 85 pages later the script for a horror film called Tusk was drafted.
During his San Diego panel, Smith described Tusk as
The cuddly version of The Human Centipede
The latest news on the film Tusk since San Diego Comic-con is that it is scheduled to shoot in September 2013, and will be made before Clerks 3 which has been pushed back into early 2014.
Smith has assured that none of this changes his plans for retirement from the film industry (which he’s been voicing for the last few years), however between more Clerks, Tusk, and of course Hit Somebody which is now a mini-series, there’s still a few movies/TV projects left in him.
Take a look at the video of Kevin discussing the above.
