Kevin Smith has been teasing some new sequels to his old films like Mallrats and Clerks 3 for a while, but it looks like neither one of those is actually coming to fruition. However, Smith is also working on a new Jay and Silent Bob movie, which will be a reboot of sorts for the characters, poking fun at current moviemaking trends. That project is moving along at a much better pace, and a lot has changed since the last Jay and Silent Bob movie -- including Kevin Smith's impressive weight loss, which has forced the writer-director to change out some fat jokes in the new script. In his words:
This is the draft where I had to take out all the fat jokes 'cause they just don't make sense anymore.
For those who may not remember, Jay and Silent Bob are recurring characters in Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse, the rare comedic shared cinematic universe that existed before that trend really became a thing. The duo, played by Jason Mewes and Smith himself, are goofy, foul-mouthed, ne'er-do-wells mostly concerned with smoking weed and talking shit. They appeared in several films like Clerks, Mallrats, _and _Chasing Amy before getting their own movie, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which followed the two as they traveled across the country to stop the making of a movie based on their likenesses, meeting plenty of cameoing celebrities and breaking the fourth wall along the way. It also had its fair share of fat jokes, most of which were squarely (roundly) aimed at Silent Bob.
Kevin Smith is the one writing those jokes in the first place, and it sounds like he had originally planned on laying more fat jokes into the sequel, but that all changed after Smith lost a ton of weight in the aftermath of his heart attack scare. During his Fatman on Batman podcast (soon to be rebranded to Fatman Beyond), Smith gave a brief update on the Jay and Silent Bob sequel and said that he had to rewrite a bunch of jokes in the script. They were fat jokes aimed at his character, which obviously wouldn't make much sense anymore, given that Smith is not as heavy as he used to be. Does that mean we'll get a slew of skinny gags now?
It's been over a decade since Kevin Smith has made a film in the View Askewniverse, but it isn't like the director hasn't been keeping busy. He's directed a few episodes of The Flash and Supergirl over on the CW, in addition to writing and directing darker genre films like Red State, Tusk, and Yoga Hosers. Smith also remains a pretty well-known figure in the comics/nerd world, with that side of his career also going strong, and I'm sure that fans of his earlier work are curious to see what he has to say about the current trends of Hollywood, both related to weight and not.
There's no real release date for the Jay and Silent Bob sequel, but the film will follow the characters as they set out to stop the reboot of a movie that is based on their likeness (sound familiar?). In the meantime, keep track of everything coming to theaters in the next few months with our 2018 movie release calendar.
