One of the stranger aspects about sequels is remembering plot points from the original. Some movies are kind enough to have some non-intrusive refresher. Others just take it for granted that you have a razor-sharp memory, and either you’ve recently re-watched the original, or it remains an active memory in your mind, no matter how mundane.
Which is why when we sit you down to tell you that Rosario Dawson was in Clerks II, you rustle in your memory to recall that there was a Clerks II and that it was completely inessential, but Rosario Dawson was totally in it. Now you remember the sober-and-healthy Jason Mewes, you remember the pasty-faced Jeff Anderson, the donkey show… hey, you remember a lot of this movie, don’t you? And just in time for a Clerks III too. Wait, how did that one end? How is there another Clerks?
Speaking to Den of Geek’s U.S. affiliate, Dawson revealed that Kevin Smith has confirmed that she’s in the planned third Clerks, though she knows nothing else, particularly regarding a shooting date. Dawson played Becky in the second film, the love interest of put-upon Dante (Brian O’Halloran), nonetheless way out of his league. Almost everything that Dawson does doesn’t deserve her: it’s not certain how such a talented leading lady has been stuck in such forgettable roles, seducing roly-polys like O’Halloran and Kevin James in the intolerable The Zookeeper.
Clerks III was announced by Smith to be his final film, but he’s made that claim plenty of times before. He also said it would be out for the twentieth anniversary of the original Clerks, which would mean it would be coming out this November, 2014. Being that Dawson has not been involved in any filming, that also seems untrue. It seems that Red State re-energized something in him, enough that the horror film Tusk is his next effort. Beyond that, he’s also got a script for something called Helena Handbasket, about a vengeful God and the forces of Hell that can stop him. Smith is a talented, if undisciplined, writer-director, and it’s exciting to see someone with the clout to experiment in multiple genres.
That said, he’d better not be the latest in the industry to waste poor Ms. Dawson. Though she’s suffered some indignities in recent memory (that’s her getting pummeled to an unrecognizable pulp in the recent Raze), she was excellent in last year’s underseen Trance, playing a therapist with a few aces up her sleeve, dealing with some thuggish art thieves. She’ll also be seen later this year in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, as well as Cesar Chavez and Atom Egoyan’s The Captive it’s not too late for Hollywood to apologize for wasting her prime in movies like Eagle Eye and Unstoppable playing Woman In Sensible Pants Who Delivers Exposition.
