“28 years ago from right now,Clerksis screening for the first time at the @angelikafilmny to a nearly empty theater on the closing day of the 1993 IFFM. The Independent Feature Film Market was our endgame, not @sundanceorg. Sundance was for better films than ours, I figured: indie films that were shot in color and featured well-known actors. #richardlinklater took Slacker there, and that flick was my lodestar - hence our IFFM goal. I thought nobody was there (as you can read in the excerpt from my new @insighteditions book) - but somebody named Bob Hawk was in attendance. And Bob told the world about our weird-ass, punk rock movie,“Kevin Smithrecalled.

He continued, “If Bob skips that screening,Clerksdies 28 years ago, as that IFFM screening ends. So sinceBob Hawk is the Patron Saint of Clerks, it was only natural he show up in #clerks3 (in a cameo as the guy who inspires the @pringles can scene in Randal’s indie flick entitled ‘In Convenience’ - which was the original title ofClerks). One person made all the difference in whether or not the world sawClerks- a film the @librarycongress eventually deemed worthy of inclusion in the @nfregistry. And 28 years ago from right now, Bob is introducing himself to @samosier and telling him we should submit the film to Sundance.”

WhileClerkswas the movie that gave Smith’s career the jump start it needed, it is likely that he would have managed to find his way to his current position somehow, as he doesn’t really seem like the type to sit quietly in the background and wait for chances to simply fall in his lap. However, he did reveal recently that his heart attack a few years go, which partially inspires the story line ofClerks 3, has made him consider exactly what projects he will be taking on in future.

“What it makes you do is go, ‘I don’t have time for anybody else’s stuff.’ That’s whyMasters of the Universewas so special because I’m like, ‘it’s not mine, but all right, I’ll do this,’ because I could tell a comic book story through those characters, and that appealed to me,” Smith told Uproxx. “Generally speaking,post-heart attack, it’s all about, like, tell your stories. There was a minute where I didCop Out, and I was directing CW shows. I was just spreading it around, but after the heart attack, I’m like you don’t have the time or the lifespan to spread it around. I know there’s a lot of stuff you want to say in this life. ensure you’re saying it if you do drop dead.”

Clerks IIIis expected to be released sometime in 2022, but no platform or release date have yet been confirmed. The first half of Smith’sMasters of the Universeis available now on Netflix.