‘Jay and Silent Bob: Store Wars’: Kevin Smith Announced Next Jay and Silent Bob Movie!!

Writer-director Kevin Smith sure knows how to line them up. While introducing his devoted fans to his upcoming coming-of-age film The 4:30 Movie at the ongoing San Diego Comic-Con, Smith also announced that he will next direct a third installment in the Jay and Silent Bob series. Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Smith popularized the concept of shared universes with his cult classic View Askewniverse movies, which also include the three Clerks films. The third Jay and Silent Bob movie will be titled Jay and Silent Bob: Store Wars, and will find the two characters running a dispensary, and entering a war of sorts with a rival store.

The stoner characters Jay and Silent Bob — played by Jason Mewes and Smith himself — appear across the universe, in films such as Mallrats, the Clerks movies, Dogma and Chasing Amy. They starred in two solo movies of their own, titled Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and more recently, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. The characters often find themselves in situations that reflect the state of pop-culture at the time, and serve as foils to each other. Jay often describes Bob as his “hetero life-mate.”

Jay and Silent Bob Debuted in the First ‘Clerks’ Movie

A leading voice in geek culture, Smith broke out with the first Clerks film back in the early 90s, during the new wave of American independent cinema. He has since played mostly to his own rules, writing and directing his small-budget movies and building a devoted fan-base over the years. His brief forays into studio filmmaking, such as Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Cop Out, didn’t exactly translate to bigger success, and that’s perhaps the main reason why he has found himself returning to familiar ground in recent years.

After brief experimentations with the horror genre — Smith directed the films Red State, Tusk, and Yoga Hosers — he released Clerks III and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. The upcoming The 4:30 Movie is based on Smith’s personal experiences growing up in New Jersey, and stars Austin Zajur, Nicholas Cirillo, Reed Northrup, Siena Agudong, and Ken Jeong. The movie is set for release this year. Jay and Silent Bob: Store Wars, whose title appears to be a tip of the hat to Marvel’s Avengers: Secret Wars, doesn’t have a release date yet.