Having finally secured funding, Kevin Smith has been talking about Clerks III during his latest Smodcast (via Slash Film), during which he confirmed the expected return of Jeff Anderson as Randall and Jason Mewes as Jay, stating that Jay and Silent Bob are “in the movie as much as they were in Clerks and Clerks II.”

Smith also revealed that the first ten minutes of the film will be in black-and-white, harking back to the 1994 original, although he also stressed that it will feel different in tone to its predecessors:

“I like where [the story] fucking goes so much. It’s my favorite soap opera now. It’s kinda like The Empire Strikes Back of the Clerks movies. It doesn’t tell the middle story, but it has that kinda feeling.”

As for a timeframe, Smith said he hopes to begin production in June, after he’s finished his Christmas anthology horror Krampus. He is of course currently putting the finishing touches to another movie, Yoga-Hosers, which is the second part of his True North Trilogy after Tusk.