While Kevin Smith stepped away from the View Askewniverse for a spell to work on movies like Cop Out, Red State and Tusk, he delved back into his shared continuity of characters last year with Jay and Silent Reboot, and he won’t be exiting it again anytime soon. In addition to tackling a different version of Clerks III, Smith has also revived his Mallrats sequel, with it now back to being a movie after it wasn’t picked up as a TV series several years back.
Since the beginning of the year, Kevin Smith has been dishing out details here and there about Mallrats 2, officially known as Twilight of the Mallrats, including that most of the original cast would be back. Now the filmmaker has revealed that he’s brought aboard A.P. Bio star Aparna Brielle into the sequel. In Smith’s words:
The latest update on Twilight of the Mallrats came during a double feature watch-party of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, with Kevin Smith revealing Aparna Brielle’s casting after confirming that Shannen Doherty will reprise her role of Rene Mosier in the sequel. Brielle will join the proceedings as Banner Bruce (heh, Hulk reference), the daughter of Jason Lee’s Brodie Bruce, who, as we saw in Reboot, is now running his comic book store out of a mall because the rent is cheaper.
Anyone who’s followed along with Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse knows that the director/writer often has actors play multiple roles within this universe, and Aparna Brielle is now part of this lineup, as she previously appeared in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot as Jihad. In addition to her role as Sarika Sarkar in A.P. Bio, which will air its third season on Peacock, Brielle’s other credits include Grimm, The Librarians and Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life.
While Kevin Smith originally planned for Mallrats 2 to be a Die Hard-like story, the sequel will now venture down a different narrative path. Among the things that fans can look forward to in Twilight of the Mallrats are learning what Renee Humphrey’s Tricia “Trish the Dish” Jones has been up to, seeing Ethan Suplee’s William serving as the new mall security guy and the arrest of Ben Affleck’s Shannon Hamilton in the first movie factoring into the sequel’s plot.
Kevin Smith also revealed last week that Twilight of the Mallrats will contain a scene referencing Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, who cameoed in the original Mallrats. Lee passed away in late 2018, so while it’s obviously impossible for him to truly show up in the sequel, Smith’s found a “clever” way to incorporate the comic book writer and editor into the proceedings.
As things stand now, Twilight of the Mallrats doesn’t have a release date yet. However, Kevin Smith has finished the first draft of the script, so once he’s polished it up and the film industry is able to resume normal operations, presumably he’ll start taking the next steps towards bringing the sequel to life.
Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on how Twilight of the Mallrats is coming along, and keep track of what’s coming to the big screen later this year with our 2020 release schedule.
