Clerks II is the sequel to Kevin Smith's 1994 film Clerks , and his sixth feature film to be set in the View Askewniverse. The film was released on July 21, 2006; it screened out of competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The film opened in 2,150 theaters and grossed $10,061,132 domestically in its first weekend. The film's theatrical gross was $24,148,068 domestically, plus an additional $2,833,903 foreign, turning a profit on its reported budget of $5,000,000. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot
The movie begins at the Quick Stop convenience store. Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) opens the store to find that it is on fire. As a result, he and his friend Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) begin working at a Mooby's fast food restaurant. Dante is planning to leave his minimum wage lifestyle in favor of a family life in Florida with his fiancée Emma Bunting (Jennifer Schwalbach Smith), whose father will provide them with a home and a business to run. Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) have since followed Dante and Randal, and now loiter outside of Mooby's. Although they no longer do drugs, Jay and Bob continue to sell them.
Dante confesses to his manager Becky Scott (Rosario Dawson) that he is worried about dancing at his wedding, so she takes him up onto the roof of the restaurant to teach him some moves. Dante soon lets go of his inhibitions and learns how to dance. When the song ends, Dante, caught up in the moment, tells Becky he loves her, and she blurts out that she is pregnant; Dante and Becky had a one night stand on the prep table a few weeks before. Becky tells Dante not to tell anyone about the baby; however, when Dante tells Randal, an angered Becky leaves.
Randal sets up a surprise going away party for Dante at Mooby's. He hires "Kinky Kelly and the Sexy Stud," a donkey show with a fog machine. When Dante comes back, he mistakes the fog for a fire and calls the fire department. When Dante discovers that it is not a fire, he settles in to watch the show with Randal, Jay, Bob, and Elias (Trevor Fehrman), another Mooby's employee. When Becky returns, Dante tells her that he believes that she feels the same way about him as he does about her. As they kiss, Emma arrives. She throws her engagement ring at Becky and angrily storms off.
The fire and police departments soon arrive and discover the show. Dante, Randal, Elias, Jay, Silent Bob, and the Sexy Stud (Zak Knutson) are detained and jailed. Dante blames Randal for ruining his life. After a tense argument, Randal confesses that he is afraid of losing his best friend and then proposes that they buy the Quick Stop and re-open it. Jay and Bob agree to lend them some money on the condition that they can loiter outside of the Quick Stop. Dante agrees, and after his release, he proposes to Becky, who accepts. Elias applies for a job and is hired at RST Video, the store adjacent to Quick Stop. In the very last scene, with the store open, Dante says, "Can you feel it? Today is the first day of the rest of our lives."
Cast
The main characters from the original film are Dante, Randal, and Jay and Silent Bob. Walt Flanagan and Kevin Smith's mother, Grace Smith, both make cameos at the end of the film as customers in the new Quick Stop, reprising their roles in the original film. Flanagan is the customer who asks for a pack of cigarettes, while Grace Smith is the one who checks each gallon of milk for the expiration date.
- Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks
- Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves
- Rosario Dawson as Becky Scott
- Trevor Fehrman as Elias Grover
- Jason Mewes as Jay
- Kevin Smith as Silent Bob
- Jennifer Schwalbach Smith as Emma Bunting
- Jason Lee as Lance Dowds
- Zak Knutson as Sexy Stud
Production
In 1999, the original title was slated to be Clerks 2: Hardly Clerkin' , as seen in the credits of Dogma. Smith later modified the title to The Passion of the Clerks , lampooning the title of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ . According to the DVD documentary, the title was changed to simply Clerks II , due to negative reaction to the "Passion" title. The film was shot September-November of 2005. It originally scheduled for a 2005 release, and then a January 2006 release, but the production was pushed back due to other projects and Kevin Smith's involvement in the romantic comedy Catch and Release .
Smith released production diaries on the Clerks II website (see links below). They chronicle the entire making of the film from the first rehearsals all the way through to the final release. Some of these web diaries are also available on the two-disc DVD of the film. Smith released a Web-only teaser trailer on the Clerks II website on January 9, 2006, and a web-only trailer on April 2, 2006. Smith also released several shorts featuring action figures from his previous films to promote the film.
Before the release of the film, Kevin Smith had mentioned releasing an MP3 file commentary to be downloaded and listened to in movie theaters via iPod. Ultimately, theater owners and exhibitors objected, and the plan was scrapped. The abandoned commentary, featuring Smith, Scott Mosier and Jeff Anderson, is included on the DVD.
The bookend Quick Stop scenes are in black and white (to simulate the original visual style of Clerks ), while the rest of the film is in color. Smith has said that much of the film's color was desaturated almost to the point where the film had a similar texture to the first film. The contrast in color saturation used can be seen in the 'ABC sequence' in which a more vibrant and saturated color temperature is used to give a warm and sunny look that adds to the playful nature of the piece.
Locations
The Mooby's restaurant was a shut-down Burger King at 8572 Stanton Ave in Buena Park, California, (near Knott's Berry Farm). The final days of principal photography were filmed at the Quick Stop and R.S.T. Video stores in Leonardo, New Jersey, with some exceptions, the most notable being the go-kart scene, which was shot at Speedzone in City of Industry, California.
Casting
Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, and Kevin Smith all reprised their roles from the original Clerks movie.
According to the DVD commentary, Kevin Smith originally wanted to cast his wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith as Becky. Executive Producer Harvey Weinstein objected, however, as he wanted a known actress to play the role, for marketing reasons. Other actresses that Smith had met with were Sarah Silverman and Bryce Dallas Howard, who both declined. Smith recalls having lunch with Howard, who said she was interested in the film but ultimately passed in order to do Lady in the Water . Silverman said she didn't want to play the character Becky as she had been cast as girlfriends in numerous other productions and feared type-casting, but loved the script and would have been more than willing to play the part of Randal. Rachel Weisz was another name the studio considered, but Smith figured she would turn the role down and never offered her the part. Ellen Pompeo expressed an interest but could not commit due to scheduling difficulties with Grey's Anatomy . Finally, the role was offered to Rosario Dawson, who loved the script. She later said that reading the "donkey show" scene sealed the deal for her. Jennifer Schwalbach Smith was given the secondary female role of Emma.
The character of Elias was played by Trevor Fehrman, who had previously acted in Jeff Anderson's movie, Now You Know . Smith saw him in that and was impressed enough to give him a part. In keeping with Smith's tradition of casting actors that he has previously worked with, both Jason Lee and Ben Affleck had parts in the movie. Lee played Randal Graves' old enemy, Lance Dowds, and Affleck played a random Mooby's customer. After finding no one else who could pull off being the Sexy Stud, Smith turned to crew member Zak Charles Knutson to fill the role.
At the Clerks II' s MySpace account, a contest was held in which the first 10,000 MySpace users who added Clerks II as a friend would have their name in the theatrical and DVD end credits; The list follows the View Askew and Weinstein Company logos. The names are not present in the credits on the Region 2 DVD.
Rating
The film was originally planned to be released without an MPAA film rating, in order to avoid receiving an NC-17. Smith stated "If we put it in front of the ratings board they'd be like, 'You're insane. We have to create a new rating for that.'" He later submitted it, and it received an R rating without any edits.
Critical response
The film received generally positive to mixed reviews from critics. At review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, reviews for Clerks II were split, with the film rated "fresh" overall (63% positive) but rated "rotten" by the website's top critics (55% positive). as of January 2009, the critical consensus was that the film "dishes up much of the graphic humor and some of the insight that made the 1994 original a cult hit". Metacritic characterised the film's reception as "generally favourable", with metascore of 65 out of 100 from 29 reviews.
In a review for The New York Times , A.O. Scott notes the following:
Justin Chang's review at Variety called it a "softe
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