Kevin Smith announced on Tuesday that pre-production had begun on a reboot of “Jay and Silent Bob,” starring Jason Mewes and himself as the titular characters.
Smith is developing the reboot along with producer Jordan Monsanto after previously teasing the project back in August 2017.
“Spent the first day of 2019 having a #JayAndSilentBobReboot pre-pre-production meeting at our holiday-roomy @WeWork office,” Smith said in a tweet on New Years Day. “@JayMewes took this pic of me and @JordanMonsanto to both mark the moment and to document that we were the only dopes in Hollywood working on the holiday.”
Smith and Mewes first appeared as Silent Bob and Jay respectively in “Clerks,” Smith’s low-budget, indie directorial debut from 1994. The fan-favorite characters appeared in subsequent Smith films, including “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma” and even got their own spinoff movie in 2001, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” They last appeared together on screen in 2006 in Smith’s “Clerks II.”
Back in 2017, Smith said that a “Clerks III” movie could not happen and that a “Mallrats” movie instead became a “Mallrats” series that has yet to materialize. And around that time, he explained the concept of the reboot to The Daily Beast.
“It’s literally the same f—ing movie all over again. It’s a movie that makes fun of sequels and remakes and reboots while being all three at the same time,” Smith told the Beast. “I’m glad I got to live so we can at least get Jay and Silent Bob Reboot done, hopefully before I die.”
Since first teasing the project, Smith suffered a massive heart attack following a stand-up show that resulted in him losing 51 pounds, which he showed off back in August 2018.
Spent the first day of 2019 having a #JayAndSilentBobReboot pre-pre-production meeting at our holiday-roomy @WeWork office! @JayMewes took this pic of me and @JordanMonsanto to both mark the moment and to document that we were the only dopes in Hollywood working on the holiday. pic.twitter.com/xTNrpN6OF6
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) January 2, 2019