He may have hinted at it last week on Twitter, but Kevin Smith copped to it full on today, stating that he is indeed working on a screenplay for a sequel to his 1995 comedy Mallrats.
During an interview on the Rock102 Mornings with Shmonty & Carolina radio show (via Hollywood Reporter), he stated –
Yeah, that’s what we’re working on… It’s half a script right now, and we’re pulling our loot together. We’ve got up until the beginning of 2016. By the time we get to May 2016, we’re going to be shooting… Lately I’ve been doing this thing where I’m like, “Do you want to do what’s good for your career, or do you just want to have fun?” Nobody’s clamoring for a Mallrats sequel, but I would love to make one. It’s been like 20 years… I had a cool idea and a bunch of investors that were like, ‘Do it!’ so here we are, man.
Previously, Smith has talked about doing a followup to Mallrats, even though it fairly critically lambasted and didn’t really find an audience until after it was released on home video. Over the years he had referred to the idea as “Die Hard in a mall,” and even talked about turning it into a comic book. Smith didn’t indicate if this was still his intentions for the sequel.
One thing that is definitely interesting to me is whether Jeremy London and Claire Forlani will be coming back to reprise their roles of the lovelorn TS Quint and the object of his affection Brandi. Neither were reportedly thrilled with their experience working with Smith and to this day they remain on the rather short list of actors with whom Smith has not worked on multiple projects. Then again, their characters were married off at the end of the film, so they could be living in connubial bliss out in the Jersey suburbs away from the action of the film.
Now I know what I said earlier today about sequels to older films, but I dare say that Kevin Smith’s work is far different from a science-fiction tentpole film from a major studio. Currently Smith has been securing his own financing for his films, keeping him well outside of the standard studio system. And yes, that even includes his situation at Miramax and then the Weinstein Company that defined the majority of his career. Also, with only a few exceptions, Smith’s films have all been interrelated, forming their own cinematic universe long before Robert Downey Jr strapped on his powered armor. For him to be doing direct followup to some of the characters introduced in the original – I wonder if Ben Affleck’s Shannon is out of prison yet? – certainly seems in the norm for Smith and something I’m looking forward to seeing.
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