Cult classics go as the cult goes, and Kevin Smith’s 1995 film Mallrats has a legion of fans who have yearned for a sequel for more than two decades. During an interview earlier today on 93.3 WMMR radio show Preston & Steve, Smith answered their prayers by announcing a Mallrats sequel is in the works, but as a TV series.
Smith originally wrote a 114-page script for the Mallrats sequel as a film — under the name Mallbrats — in May 2015, with the intention of not involving Universal Studios, which distributed the original. Smith still submitted the finished script to the studio in order to get approval to use the Mallrats name. Universal denied Smith’s request to make the film without its involvement. However, a few months ago, Universal and Smith began “reconfiguring the idea of doing Mallrats not as a film but as a series.”
The original film was the second film directed and written by Smith and is a prequel to the events his 1994 filmmaking debut Clerks. The original featured early film credits for Hollywood stars such as Ben Affleck, Claire Forlani, and Jason Lee. The film only raked in $2 million at the box office, a point that made Smith initially say, “I don’t know if the world is screaming out for this.” However, after directing an episode of the TV show The Flash earlier this year, Smith said in the radio interview that he “felt at home in the medium.”
The Mallrats TV series is expected to have 10 episodes, and be filmed in Exton, Pennsylvania, including at the Exton Square Mall, which Smith touted as the sequel’s mall of choice in September on Facebook. Smith did not confirm which actors from the original would be reprising roles in the TV sequel, but the Clerks creator has been leaving hints all over social media. In two separate photos he posted on his personal Twitter account weeks after finishing the Mallrats sequel’s script last year, Smith, Michael Rooker, Jason Mewes, Stan Lee and Shannen Doherty all confirmed to being committed to doing the sequel.
The sequel would probably not have been made if not for the unfortunate passing of Mallrats producer Jim Jacks in January 2014. Last March on his podcast Hollywood Babble On, Smith revealed Jacks asked him to think of a Mallrats sequel in 1995 while Smith was still making the original. “We’re gonna finally make the movie I wish to Christ I made when he was living, man,” Smith said in the podcast episode. Smith did tell Jacks that Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall was the name of the Mallrats sequel he had in mind back in 1995.
There are no details on the TV series’ plot and production start, or where it will air. Not sure how this will play out, but Smith has at least 10 episodes to show us.
