View Askew Productions
Last week, Kevin Smith updated fans his on not-yet-retired work schedule in a tweet teasing a Mallrats sequel. “I smell a rat…,” he wrote at the tail end of a note on his docket consisting of Clerks III followed by Hit Somebody then Moose Jaws. The filmmaker later confirmed, to a Tucson radio station, that he was indeed referring to Mallrats 2 and that it’s half written and will likely shoot in mid 2016.
Smith had a cinematic universe way before Marvel (and cast Stan Lee in cameos before any superhero movie did), so that makes his interest in sequels to his early movies less disagreeable. He’s doing literal sequels in the form of Clerks II, Clerks III and now this, but in a way the original Clerks already had a bunch of sequels. The first being Mallrats, which he went and made with studio money. And studio notes.
The result of that sophomore effort was a disappointment with critics and the box office, though it developed a cult following in part because it’s an essential for any View Askewniverse completist. It also helped launch the acting career of Jason Lee, who gives a breakout performance as the movie’s most memorable element. Even more than the return of the franchise connective tissue, Jay and Silent Bob.
Lee will have to be back, of course. Same goes for Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith), Ben Affleck’s Shannon (now out of jail and a registered sex offender) and Ethan Suplee’s William. Svenning and LeFours should return, too. But not Jeremy London, who I still believe was the main reason for its failure. He’s absolutely terrible in the movie, and Claire Forlani isn’t very appealing there either.
As for other changes, perhaps Smith can use an actual New Jersey mall this time around. I assume Mallrats 2 will somehow be able to break from the Universal Pictures authority that corrupted the vision of the original, and that’s just one place he could have more freedom this time around.
Here’s a quote from the radio interview regarding the sequel, via Variety:
“It kind of came out of nowhere,” Smith told the radio station about the “Mallrats” sequel. “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 ‘Mall Rats’ sequel, but I would love to make one. It’s been like 20 years.”
Smith’s next movie, Yoga Hosers, which is a spin-off of last year’s cult hit Tusk – as much a sequel as Mallrats was, for what will be the second in a trilogy entitled True North – opens on June 1st.
Related Topics: Ben Affleck, Kevin Smith
