Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes kicked off the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow in Asbury Park.
Photo courtesy Russ DeSantis
Stars can be born in the strangest of places.
For indie film stars Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, it was behind the grimy glass window of a Leonardo convenience store.
This past weekend Smith and Mewes appeared at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park to kick off the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow tour, a 65- city jaunt across the United States to promote the pair’s latest film, “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.”
While speaking from the historic seaside stage, Smith made more headlines when he revealed plans to return to the mom-and-pop shop, Quick Stop Groceries, located just across State Route 36 from Bayshore Middle School.
Smith wrote, directed and appeared alongside Mewes in his 1994 debut film “Clerks.” The Henry Hudson Regional High School graduate delivered a second installment of the buddy-comedy film, “Clerks II,” in 2006, and in Asbury Park he revealed that he will make his return to the old haunt for the filming of “Clerks III.”
The long-rumored “Clerks III” script was unveiled this past summer at a live reading in Atlantic Highlands during a fundraising event for the First Avenue Playhouse, the venue at which Smith hosted casting calls in the early ‘90s.
Following the screening of “Reboot,” Smith revealed that he’ll be spending even more time at the miniature strip mall for yet another for thcoming project.
“I spent a lot of time down at the Quick Stop today because there’s an end unit on the building that’s completely empty,” Smith said to the Paramount Theatre audience. “We’re going to turn it into SModcastle.”
SModcastle is a performance space Smith founded in 2010 in Los Angeles, and a space where fans could sit in a live theater setting to view the recording of Smith’s SModcast podcasts.
“We’re all going to throw in and kind of make this theater,” Smith said, noting that the endeavor was a collective effort among him, friends and the owners of Quick Stop Groceries. “We’re going to end the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow at the theater opening day in February. From there for ward, we’re just going to start doing what we did at SModcastle out west.”
Also made famous in the 1994 film was RST Video, a local video store where one of the leading characters worked. The video store has been out of business for years, but through tears in the newspaper covering the windows, remnants of VHS boxes and scattered videotapes could be seen strewn about the floors and on dusty shelves.
Last month, a local man named Tucker Brennan announced his intentions to resurrect RST Video as a tangible, experiential, boutique video store for sales and rentals on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray and, of course, VHS. Brennan also said that a large selection of video games and gaming consoles will be available for sale and rent, as well as antique electronics from VCRs to turntables for vinyl records.
Brennan has launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign. At publication, the campaign had raised $2,178 from 34 backers.
