Kevin Smith has confirmed that he will begin shooting Clerks III next month.

• READ MORE: Kevin Smith: “I’m the world’s biggest Kevin Smith fan”

He also said that Lionsgate has acquired the film rights and production will take place in New Jersey.

“There’s a saying from the Tao that goes something like ‘To be great is to go on. To go on is to go far. To go far is to return.’ Thanks to Lionsgate, we get to return to where it all started with almost the whole cast that started it all!” Smith said in a statement via Deadline.

“And for the first time since the first time we ever made a movie in 1993, we’re shooting the entire flick on location in New Jersey, as an ode to both the enduring allure of cinema and the resourcefulness and lunacy of its storytellers. Years ago, Dante and Randal made me a filmmaker – so now it’s time I return the favour.”

The filmmaker previously confirmed that characters Dante, Randal, Elias, Becky, Jay and Silent Bob will make a return, while tweeting that it had a “funny fucking script”.

In Clerks III, following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists Dante, Elias, Jay and Silent Bob to make a movie immortalising his life at the convenience store that started it all.

“This is a much more personal story than the previous incarnation, drawing directly on the heart attack that nearly killed me (3 years ago next month),” Smith previously posted. “It was oddly triggering writing those scenes, as it was the first time in awhile I contemplated how close I came to shuffling lose this mortal coil. But far more than make me mindful of my own mortality, this script to Clerks III makes me laugh out loud.”

He concluded: “Dante, Randal, Elias, Becky, Jay and Silent Bob are all back, and the premise of the flick allows anyone who was in Clerks or Clerks II to return in some capacity. After a bummer of a 2020, this is how I want to spend some of 2021: at @quickstopgroceries in New Jersey where it all began, with friends and family. And when we finally roll cameras on Clerks III, I will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I *am* supposed to be there that day!”

Meanwhile, a new trailer for Smith‘s Netflix animation series Masters Of The Universe: Revelation was recently shared.

The first five episodes of the new He-Man show, which picks up right after the original show ended in 1985, arrives on the streaming platform on July 23.