The critical response to last weekend's Sundance premiere of Kevin Smith's YOGA HOSERS may not have been overwhelmingly positive, our own Chris Bumbray gave it a 2/10 review, but that hasn't had an impact on the future of the filmmaker's True North Trilogy, of which YOGA HOSERS is the second chapter. The three-part series of Canada-set creature features that began with 2014's TUSK will conclude with MOOSE JAWS, which Smith says will be his next film. As of right now, he expects to be in production on that one in April.
MOOSE JAWS is about
a giant, man-eating moose terrorizing a summer camp in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
It is indeed "JAWS with a moose", and the cast of MOOSE JAWS is set to include Harley Morenstein as a camp counselor (the Chief Brody stand-in), Genesis Rodriguez as her TUSK character Ally Leon (the Hooper stand-in), and Smith himself and Jason Mewes, playing Jay and Silent Bob for the first time (in live action) since 2006's CLERKS II. Jay and Silent Bob will be the story's Quint types, and as Quint died, Silent Bob is expected to die as well. Various other actors will also be returning from TUSK and YOGA HOSERS; Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp will again be playing the Colleens, and Johnny Depp is very likely to be back as oddball manhunter Guy Lapointe.
The story is said to stick very closely to the beats of JAWS until the third act, at which point, Smith told the audience at a Q&A panel hosted by Deadline Hollywood, influences from other films begin to get worked in, namely GODZILLA, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, and RETURN OF THE JEDI.
Smith has referenced GODZILLA as an inspiration before, saying that the film ends with a battle between two monsters. At this panel, Smith dropped a rather large spoiler about that battle. A spoiler on the level of when he said Silent Bob will die in the movie, but one that I've suspected ever since he said there would be a monster fight in MOOSE JAWS.
While the references to TUSK in YOGA HOSERS are apparently minor, MOOSE JAWS will have a very strong tie back to the first film: the monster who will be brought in to fight the killer moose is Justin Long's TUSK character Wallace, who was surgically transformed into a man/walrus hybrid.
For a series featuring walrus men, a Goalie Golem, and Nazi bratwurst that crawl up people's asses, that sounds like a fittingly insane sequence to end on.
The Deadline Hollywood panel can be viewed in its entirety below. The moderator and guests don't take the stage until 21:45, with the MOOSE JAWS spoiler/news coming at around the 64 minute mark.
Long and Rodriguez in TUSK