Back in June, Kevin Smith revealed that he’s scrapped his plans for a big screen sequel to his 1995 cult classic Mallrats in favour of a ten episode TV series, and he’s now been talking about the project during an interview with Creative Screenwriting, describing it as a “sweet family story” and offering up a few plot details.
“Here I am trying to sequelize, theatrically, a twenty-one-year-old movie that flopped the first time. Naturally, no one gets hard when you talk about that in the studio system. But when you step into Universal TV and you’re like, ‘hey, what about Mallrats the series?’ they got it right away. They said, “Are you kidding me? That’d be perfect.’ It’s a real sweet, family story. It’s a multi-generational tale. It’s my chance to do John Hughes and Degrassi Junior High, because much like the Degrassi formula we know our legacy cast – we know Brody and Rene and T.S. and Jay and Silent Bob – and then we meet their kids. So we meet Brody and Rene’s daughter Banner Bruce, and the story takes place in his world and her world. Nobody goes to the fucking mall anymore, so the kids are baffled by it, and Brody still believes in it in a big, bad way.”
Smith has several other small screen projects on his slate; in addition to episodes of The Flash and Supergirl, he’s also adapting The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, and he went on to state that he is hoping to fans of the 1984 cult classic involved behind-the-scenes:
“A lot of people in this business love that movie so the moment they heard we were doing it, they were like, ‘Oh my Lord, I want to be involved in some way shape or form.’ A lot of writers came out of the woodwork. If we finally go to camera it ain’t going to be me directing all of them. I’m going to collect the best-of, ragtag fucking indie filmmakers you’ve ever seen. Like the cats I’ve met over two decades who love this movie. As soon as we got budget and time, I’m totally reaching out to Quentin Tarantino. People are like, ‘You’re crazy, he ain’t going to do it.’ But I’m like, ‘He might! He’s directed TV before and he loves Buckaroo Banzai!'”
Hat tip to Theo Hogan for the heads up.
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Originally published September 8, 2016. Updated November 30, 2022.
