The version of Clerks III we’re actually going to find yourself with is radically different from Kevin Smith’s original vision. It seems that when he was first writing the film, it was going to happen from just about the identical place to begin as 2019’s Jay And Silent Bob Reboot. That version of Clerks III would begin with Randal and Dante in jail (after Jay and Bob were arrested for peddling drugs out of what was once the video store next to the QuickStop) right as Hurricane Sandy arrived within the Latest York region.

They’d leave the jail only to understand that the Quick-Stop had been destroyed in a flood. The film would see the people create a mock town within the car parking zone of a movie show, complete with a ramshackle shanty version of the Quick-Stop. The entire movie was apparently about “coping with grief.”

In fact, that might plot is pretty far-out and doesn’t really appear to be much of a Clerks movie. Smith struggled for some time to work out a plot that might fit higher into the Clerks franchise when he had a near-fatal heart attack. He decided that was a superb backbone for the movie, and got back to work.

Kevin Smith also spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, where he detailed a bit of more concerning the decision to change the script up. He said:

It felt like Clerks III needed to be at Quick Stop where all of it began. That was capable of feed all the things else and once I gave Randal my heart attack, it was like, well, we are going to give him the movie as well. Then we were off to the races.

Clerks III will premiere first in Latest Jersey on September 4 and can get a wider release on September 13.