Kevin Smith Reveals ‘Jay and Silent Bob Reboot’ Details and Release Date

“It’s a movie that makes fun of sequels and remakes and reboots while being all three at the same time.”

Fans of the 2001 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back first learned that creator and star Kevin Smith is making a sequel when he posted the title page of a script to Instagram last year.  

On a recent episode of Smith’s Fatman on Batman podcast, he revealed that production of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is set to begin in August to meet a tentative 2019 release date. 

He also outlined the extremely meta plot of Reboot, which pits the titular characters played by Smith and Jason Mewes on a cross-country trip to stop Hollywood execs from making a reboot of the movie they collected royalties on in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. 

Confused? Let Smith explain:

“We’re doing a sequel to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and it’s called Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It’s us, it’s me and Jay so it’s not really strictly a reboot in the way that people think of a reboot, “he said. 

“If you remember Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back it was a movie in which Jay and Silent Bob found out Hollywood was making a movie about them so they went cross country to Hollywood to stop that from happening. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is completely fucking different. 

“In Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, Jay and Silent Bob find out that Hollywood is making a reboot of that old movie that they had made about them, and they have to go cross the country to Hollywood to stop it all over again.”

“It’s literally the same fucking movie all over again,” he added. “It’s a movie that makes fun of sequels and remakes and reboots while being all three at the same time.”  

Smith also talked Reboot’s inspiration. Comicbook.com has further details: 

Smith compared the movie to filmmaker Gus Van Sant’s decision to remake Psycho — a move that he made in between directing “Good Will Hunting” and appearing in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.”
In that film, Van Sant (playing himself) was making a sequel to “Good Will Hunting,” letting Ben Affleck and Matt Damon more or less direct themselves while he counted stacks of money.

 “One of my favorite little director tricks or experiments of the last 20-25 years was Gus Van Sant,” Smith said. “He’s coming off the heat of Good Will Hunting. He’s an Academy Award-nominated director. The film won awards. Ben and Matt won for screenwriting, Robin Williams won Best Actor in it. Gus had his pick of anything, he could do anything he wanted, and he went into Universal and he was like ‘I want to remake Psycho,’”

“I thought that was so crazy, ballsy, he wanted to do a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, but in color with new actors. Some people will argue from not until the end of time that it was absolutely fucking unnecessary, but I like that it was just ballsy. He literally just made the same fucking movie over again.” 

Though Van Sant’s Psycho stayed true to Hitchcock’s horror classic, Smith said that Reboot will has an entirely different script with a few nods to its predecessor. 

“Mine’s not that,” Smith added. “We have a completely different script, but I used the script of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to build the script to Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. So there’ a van in it with three girls in it.”  

Let’s hope Smith sneaks a reprisal of Jay’s rap in there as well: 

h/t: Bro Bible