Filmmaker Kevin Smith comes to Iowa City's Englert Theatre for screening of 'Clerks III'

Filmmaker Kevin Smith is returning to Iowa City on Wednesday as part of his tour screening his film “Clerks III.”

"Clerks III: The Convenience Tour" comes to the Englert Theatre, co-presented by FilmScene, after two nights in Chicago, inviting audiences to watch the film followed by a Q&A with Smith.

For the uninitiated, “Clerks III” is the third installment in the film series that launched Smith’s directorial career nearly 30 years ago.

The 1994 black-and-white comedy "Clerks" depicted a day in a life of Dante Hicks, a convenience store clerk at Quick Stop who is called into work on his day off. He and friend Randal Graves goof off, deal with customers and navigate their love lives, joined by a cast of characters including Jay and Silent Bob — who’d be leads and reoccurring characters in Smith’s fictional View Askewniverse.

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The third installment of "Clerks" reunites a majority of the cast for a film that follows Graves, who survives a heart attack — reflective of Smith’s real-life heart attack in 2018 — and decides to make a movie about his and his friend’s lives at Quick Stop.

Essentially, the third film is the cast filming the first.

Smith, in a phone interview with the Press-Citizen, said he was “flabbergasted” people are still talking about “Clerks,” though you won’t hear any complaints from him.

The film, Smith has found, has been passed down to younger generations, evident by the teen fans who show up to the "Clerks III" tour with their proud parents by their side.

Though the movie began as a way for Smith to realize his wish to make a film, “Clerks” has become something much more than that over the years, he said.

“You learn along the way that the movie stops being yours at a certain point and you’ll always be the author, but people make of it what they need it to be," Smith said. "They’ll turn these movies into a buoy in a stormy sea, something they’ll hold on to in the worst moments of their lives.”

It was a busy week for the filmmaker and comic book writer when he spoke to the Press-Citizen.

He’d hosted a screening of “Dogma” at his New Jersey theater, followed by George R.R. Martin's show at the theater later in the week, and the first of Smith’s new anthology series “Quick Stops” was published.

“Clerks” received a cult following and has been praised for its success as an independent film shot on a tight budget of $27,575, largely funded with credit cards, Smith told the Guardian in 2019.

Filmed over 21 nights straight, “Clerks” made its debut at the Independent Feature Film Marketplace and later went on to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994.

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Now, some independent filmmakers are opting to find support, and audiences, through YouTube, social media and crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter — which made headlines this year when YouTuber Chris Stuckmann’s horror film “Shelby Oaks” broke the record for the most funded horror film in the platform’s history, Deadline reported.

“I was lucky because I was making my art in the beginning at a time when they were like, ‘Well, the only way to bring this to the world is to put it in a movie theater’ and stuff like that,” Smith said. “The advent of YouTube would have been perfect for a guy like me, like, 'Oh, I can say whatever I want, do whatever I want and put it here and slowly build an audience.'”

But Smith has built a large, dedicated audience over the years with flicks like “Dogma,” “Mallrats,” “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and “Tusk.”

Smith’s platform has allowed him to transition into being a “professional raconteur,” and join audiences for Q&As eager to pick the filmmaker's brain and talk about his other work.

“For me, it's like going to a church every night where I'm both the priest and Jesus at the same time,” he said of his tour. “It's really awesome.”

In attendance at these screenings are the “hardcore fans,” the ones who’ve been with Smith on this journey and can appreciate the moments the same way a Marvel fan — Smith’s comparison — can appreciate when Captain America wields Thor’s hammer.

While folks are watching the antics of Dante, Randal, Jay and Silent Bob, Smith will be behind the screen taking it all in and catching the moments where audiences react differently from a previous show.

But the continuing conversations about “Clerks,” Smith said, are largely because of him.

“Believe me, I'm my own best publicist," he said. "The only reason people are still talking about ‘Clerks’ is because I'm out there every day going, ‘Hey, man, remember when I made “Clerks?”’ I'll never let em’ (expletive) forget. It’s my magic trick.”

“Clerks III” is available to purchase on streaming services like Amazon Prime Video.

Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach her at PBarraza@press-citizen.com or (319) 519-9731. Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Iowa City welcomes filmmaker Kevin Smith for 'Clerks III' screening