Writer-director Kevin Smith has announced to a breathless world that yes, Clerks 3 is definitely probably happening, now that he’s started writing a script and has reconnected with estranged franchise star Jeff Anderson.
And that’s great because we’ve all been wondering what Dante and Randal have been up to since they worked in a convenience store, right? I mean, just think of all those compelling, necessary stories they could tell like… um…
They’re not the only ones. Novelist Irvine Welsh is agitating for a third Trainspotting film, despite T2 not exactly setting the world alight.
And this is for a good reason: not everything has to be a goddamn film trilogy. Sometimes in movies the story you tell is all the story that needs telling.
And how many great trilogies have there been, really? Lord Of The Rings, although that structure was in the original three-volume source material – and hoo boy, The Hobbit proved that lightning doesn’t strike twice, huh?
Toy Story managed to say something worthwhile, even out to its fourth entry. And, obviously, there’s Star Wars, at least with the Original Trilogy or, as I irritatingly prefer to call it, the OrigeTrige, although it’s hard to imagine anyone loving Return Of The Jedi more than the preceding entries.
And that problem – the weak third instalment – seems to be a feature of most of the series that Hollywood has given us. Spider-Man 1? Beloved. Spider-Man 2? Acclaimed! Spider-Man 3? Loathed beyond expression.
That applies to The Godfather – arguably the film that made big budget studio sequels a thing – the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, the Blade movies, the X-Men films, and so on.
Alien? Perfect suspense horror. Aliens? Perfect action adventure. Alien3? Perfect mess. And don’t get us started on The Matrix.
Comedies too: who rates Goldmember as being the best Austin Powers film? Anyone find themselves watching The Hangover 3 on the regular?
And look, we get it. There are a lot of reasons why films are made and “money” are all of them. It’s a business and it’s entirely reasonable that studios would want to give the public more of what the public have shown a willingness to pay money for. But not everything needs to stretch out to a goddamn film trilogy, that’s just a fact.
But, Kevin. Clerks 3. Search your feelings: is the universe truly calling for it? Yeah, we didn’t think so either.