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Kevin Smith Updates 'Clerks III,' Premiere of 'Tusk' and a New Project

by Ethan Anderton
December 31, 2013

Remember when Kevin Smith said he was going to retire from directing films and move into producing films for other people following his distribution of Red State? Yeah, that's not happening anytime soon. The director is putting the finishing touches on his odd horror film Tusk (which will premiere a trailer at Sundance next month), preparing to shoot Clerks III sometime this year, and now he has a new project in the works as well. Smith updated Facebook yesterday with some news on the two forthcoming projects, and yet another original project that he also wrote himself, but may not necessarily get in front of the camera.

We already know Tusk will hit the big screen sometime this fall because A24 and Demarest Films have already announced that they've picked up the film for distribution. However, since the film isn't premiering at Sundance, when will people get a chance to see it before it hits theaters? Well, posting a picture of the certificates for his past films that went to Cannes (Clerks, Dogma, and Clerks II), the director said he hopes to add one more this spring. That means Smith is hoping to premiere Tusk overseas at the international film festival. He would be a returning filmmaker, so the chances of that happening are pretty likely.

But Cannes won't be the only big thing for the filmmaker in May. Smith also says that he's planning to shoot Clerks III in May. Of course, that could just be a lingering hope at this point. After all, we're not even sure he's been given a greenlight yet, but the first draft of the script was completed this past May. If he gets production underway by that point, there's a good chance he could take the film to Sundance in 2015. It would only be appropriate since that's where his filmmaking career began with Clerks all those years ago. But Clerks III won't be Smith's last film as he said before.

Another picture post on Facebook from Smith teased a new project that Smith wrote himself. The script spawned from a Smodcast episode called "The (C)rapture" and has the punny title of Helena Handbag. It sounds pretty outlandish, as Smith explains:

"…the plot of the movie concerns mankind teaming up with Hell to save existence from extinction at the hands of a Rapturing giant Jesus - which means the budget has to be LOW, because NOBODY'S gonna wanna make that movie. At all. And I know this going in, so I won't be heartbroken if it never goes beyond the script. But… if the script is funny enough? Who knows? That walrus movie seemed pretty daffy and far-fetched until we were standing on the TUSK set bringing that shit to life four months and change after first making it up in episode 259 of SModcast. And right now, the aim is to shoot CLERKS III this May - so this HELENA HANDBAG picture would still be a ways off anyway.

…I'm going with the title HELENA HANDBAG - which comes directly from the plot of the flick (it's kind of a nod to David Lynch's unproduced ONE SALIVA BUBBLE screenplay, too - which was also about the end of the world and also carried a title that didn't really prepare you for what the movie was about)."

Of course, the title does somewhat prepare you for the film. Because "hell in a handbag" references some sort of inescapable and insane disastrous event. And a giant Jesus would certainly spawn people to say that the world is going to hell in a handbag. We're wondering how the punny title comes into play in the plot, but we'll have to wait and see if the film gets made to learn that. Honestly, the premise sounds pretty interesting, but we'll reserve our excitement to see how the aging Smith churns out Tusk and Clerks III. It would be great if those two films somehow reinvigorated his career, but we're cautiously optimistic for now.

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