We've known for some time that Mallrats, Kevin Smith's 1995 comedy about geeky slackers hanging out at the mall, was getting a sequel. Kevin Smith announced it himself last year, with 18 characters supposedly returning and six new ones. The movie was said to begin filming this year, but it seemed to have entered a sort of limbo, and there haven't been any new details on the sequel. Is it even still happening? Yes, but definitely not in the way you expected. Mallrats 2 (or Mallbrats, if that's still the title) will no longer be a feature film. It will instead return as a 10 episode television series.
Kevin Smith dropped the news himself while on the 93.3 WMMR on Preston & Steve. The radio duo asked him about the status of Mallrats 2, and Smith opened up into an anecdote (something he's pretty good at) about the process of making the movie. Originally, Smith was told by his agent that he'd be able to write a script and get the rights to make the movie from Universal, who own the property. The problem was Universal never ever sells anything they own, so Smith began negotiations to co-finance the film with them. Things seemed to be at a stalemate, but in true fashion, The Flash came in to save the day. Smith went to direct a pretty great episode of the superhero series that has apparently opened a lot of doors for him.
And suddenly because I did the episode of The Flash, like MGM reached out about Buckaroo Banzai and suddenly that came together and we went out and pitched yesterday and found a home for it...So, while I'm in that world and space, a couple months ago, we started reconfiguring the idea of doing Mallrats not as a film but as a series, and Universal and I are just about to close our deal to do Mallrats the series. Then we take it out into the world and find a home for it. So, instead of doing a Mallrats movie, I'm going to do 10 episodes of a Mallrats series.
So it sounds like we have The Flash to thank for all this. Kevin Smith admitted that directing the episode was "kind of a weird game changer" for his career and that he "felt at home in the medium." Thus, the Mallrats TV series was born. There aren't any more details other than it's happening soon. It doesn't have a network yet, but it feels more like a Netflix or Hulu series than it does a cable one. Mallrats is pretty foulmouthed, and it wouldn't feel right if Brodie and T.S. couldn't curse while debating the intricacies of superhero sex. Then again, Smith's Comic Book Men has been on AMC for a few years now, so he already has an existing relationship with the network.
Mallrats 2 is coming to the TV screen eventually, but you can check out Kevin Smith's certifiably insane movie Yoga Hosers in theaters on July 29.
