The View Askewniverse is a fictional universe created by writer/director Kevin Smith, featured in several films, comics and a television series; it is named for Smith's production company, View Askew Productions. The characters Jay and Silent Bob appear in almost all the View Askewniverse media, and characters from one story often reappear or are referred to in others. Smith often casts the same actors for multiple characters in the universe, sometimes even in the same film; Smith himself portrays the character of Silent Bob.
Smith's recurring characters, settings, and motifs first appeared in his debut film, Clerks. Since then, the main canon has consisted of nine feature films, in addition to several short films, comic books, and a short-lived animated television series. The View Askewniverse is centered on the towns of Leonardo, Highlands, and Red Bank, all located in Monmouth County, central New Jersey. Chasing Amy also takes place partly in New York City, while Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot involve road trips.
The first film in the series of the View Askewniverse, Clerks follows a day in the lives of two store clerks, Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson). Dante is called into work at the Quick Stop convenience store on his day off until the boss can relieve him at noon. As Dante serves a succession of customers, he repeatedly complains that he is "not even supposed to be here today". Randal works at RST Video next door, although he spends almost the entire day relaxing at the Quick Stop. Dante learns he will be working all day, and decides to close the store for brief periods to play hockey on the roof and to attend a memorial service for his ex-girlfriend. An old flame now engaged surprises him with a visit. The two had been talking on the phone for months and after seeing each other again they are keen to reunite and leave their current relationships.
Two young men, Brodie Bruce and T.S. Quint, hang out at a mall after being dumped by their girlfriends, while also trying to avoid the wrath of Shannon Hamilton. The film occurs one day before the events of Clerks.
A heterosexual man, Holden McNeil, falls in love with a lesbian woman, Alyssa Jones, causing conflict with his homophobic best friend, Banky Edwards, with whom he has created a comic book called Bluntman and Chronic based upon their friends Jay and Silent Bob.
The world ends if two angels enter a church in New Jersey and Jesus' last scion, Jay and Silent Bob, and the thirteenth Apostle have to stop them.
Jay and Silent Bob embark on a road-trip to Hollywood to try to stop production of a Bluntman and Chronic movie. Within the film, the Bluntman and Chronic movie was to be based on the comic made by the protagonists of Chasing Amy.
Roughly ten years after Clerks, an accident destroys the Quick Stop; as a result, Dante and Randal are now employed in the fast food industry.
The animated film depicts the events within the Bluntman and Chronic comic written by the protagonists of Chasing Amy, which was to be adapted into a movie in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Kevin Smith adapted the script from the Bluntman and Chronic comics story he had originally written as a companion piece to the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
After losing the legal rights to their names over a film reboot of Bluntman and Chronic, Jay and Silent Bob travel across the United States to try to prevent the reboot from being made.
Now co-owners of the Quick Stop, Dante and Randal are staring down middle age when Randal gets the idea to make a movie about their lives behind the counter. With Dante reluctantly on board, the two set out to capture the absurd conversations, eccentric customers, and hard truths that have shaped their years in the store. What begins as a goofy project turns into a chaotic but heartfelt look at friendship, regret, and the strange poetry of clerking.
On March 12, 2015, Smith confirmed that Mallrats 2 was being written and was slated to begin shooting in May 2016. In April 2015, Smith announced that Mallrats 2 would be his next film, instead of Clerks III as originally intended, and would begin production the following year. In January 2020, Smith announced that development on Mallrats 2 had started up again, under a new title, Twilight of the Mallrats. It was planned that Mallrats star Shannen Doherty would reprise her role in the sequel; however, she died in July 2024. A few months later, however, Smith suggested that the sequel could still be made, reframed as a tribute to Doherty.
In 2018, STX Entertainment announced that their Surreal division was working with Kevin Smith on a VR series that would star Jay and Silent Bob.
Smith often casts the same actors for multiple characters in the universe, sometimes even in the same film. This is most notable in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, in which several actors play multiple characters from earlier View Askewniverse films.
Smith and Jason Mewes are the only actors to appear in every film as the same characters. Two other actors have appeared in every film, as different characters: Walt Flanagan and Brian O'Halloran, with O'Halloran always appearing as a member of the Hicks family (most notably Dante).
The more notable recurring actors include:
A beat 'em up video game titled Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch was funded in April 2016, and has yet to be released. The game began production after being successfully crowdfunded on Fig.
Another beat 'em up video game titled Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl released to the backers of Chronic Blunt Punch for free on Steam in 2020. It is available to purchase digitally on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4. Limited Run Games released a physical edition, with pre-orders becoming available for purchase on April 20, 2021. An NES port was also released shortly after its launch on modern platforms.
Jay and Silent Bob appear as cameo characters in Randal's Monday, a point-and-click adventure game published by Daedalic Entertainment. Jason Mewes reprises his role as Jay. The main character of the game is named Randal Hicks (a name combining both Randal Graves and Dante Hicks, the protagonists of Clerks), and is voiced by Jeff Anderson, the actor for Randal Graves in the View Askewniverse films. However, the character and plot of the game bear no relation to Clerks or the View Askewniverse.
Jay and Silent Bob appear and voice themselves in 2024's Call of Duty Black Ops 6. They appear in 2 bundles, named Tracer Pack: Jay and Silent Bob, and Tracer Pack: Bluntman and Chronic. The bundles appeared during a 420 event, and have remained in the game ever since.
Following Clerks, Smith wrote a film called Busing for Hollywood Pictures, a now-defunct Disney studio. It was described as "Clerks in a restaurant." The film was announced around 1994 and was intended to be part of the View Askewniverse. The film was not made, but the film was featured at the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as a poster parodying the Clerks poster.
A follow-up to Chasing Amy, Smith wrote a new film set in the View Askewniverse starring the trio from Amy that was not a sequel. Smith said "it was kind of porn-bent." Affleck and Adams were interested in doing the project, but plans eventually fell through. Smith's efforts to develop a project about pornography led to the 2008 film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Smith abandoned Name in favor of Dogma.
In late November 2005, Smith responded to talk of a possible sequel to Dogma on the ViewAskew.com message boards:
Over a decade later, there has apparently been no further discussion. But in October 2017, Smith revealed that he no longer desired to make any new religious films.
Near the same time as the cancellation, just weeks before the Weinstein scandal broke to the public, Harvey Weinstein pitched to Smith about doing a sequel. Not much came from this pitch, but it was just a mere idea for Weinstein. According to Smith in an interview with Business Insider, he recalls:
Smith believes that he only got the call because, as he believes, "It was him looking to see who was a friend still because his life was about to shift completely."
For several years following the cancellation of ', Smith announced plans to make an animated film. He revealed in a commentary on Episode 6 that it would go theatrical (with the hopes to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature), but later made plans to go direct-to-video. The basic plot involved Dante and Randal making a movie about their lives at the Quick Stop, a reference to the production of the original film. In an interview, Kevin Smith expanded on the delays surrounding the film. He stated that when Harvey and Bob Weinstein left Miramax, owned at the time by The Walt Disney Company, the split was not completely amicable. The rights to the Clerks television series were still owned by Disney, who as a result were reluctant to work with The Weinstein Company, throwing the future of Clerks: Sell Out into question. At the 2007 Cornell Q&A, Smith said due to the Miramax/Weinstein argument "you will see a Jay and Silent Bob cartoon before Clerks: Sell Out."
Despite the fact that Sell Out might not get made, Smith's new script for the long-awaited Clerks III will follow the original plot from the animated film.