Kevin Smith Addresses Plans for Long-Awaited Sequel Just Months After Scrapping It

Kevin Smith is expecting another reasonable hit with The 4:30 Movie, but many fans have been wondering whether he will ever get to make his long-gestating sequel to Mallrats. Talk of Mallrats 2has been ongoing for a number of years now, but as well as there being little movement on the film’s development, the death of original star Shannen Doherty earlier this year made the impossible task seem almost even less likely than it was previously. It seems that was also how Smith originally felt too.

In a new interview with Deadline promoting The 4:30 Movie, Smith addressed the chances of Mallrats 2 ever being made, starting with how the death of Doherty seemed to be the end of the road for the sequel. He said:

“So, with Shannen’s passing, at that point, I was like, ‘Well, I guess that kind of closes the book for us. But then a couple of weeks ago, my producer was having a conversation with some folks at Universal. The thing has been for years that, of course I’d love to make the Mallrats sequel as I’ve said many times. Any time I turn in a script, the good folks at Universal are like, ‘This is neither fast nor furious.’ So, we never go anywhere.”

So Mallrats 2 is not abandoned just yet, and Smith seems ready to take a leaf out of the Costner and Coppola handbook of film financing by pitching that Universal should let him sort out the money to make the movie and just let him get on with it. He continued:

“But I think we’re going back to have a discussion again about like, look, you guys are never gonna do anything with this. Like, but we can and would and would and would love to. So can you let us take it out? We’re not asking Universal to finance it, but it’s just like, hey, can we have it so we can go out because I can get that movie financed in a heartbeat, Mallrats 2.”

Kevin Smith Doesn’t Give Up on Movies Easily

Throughout his entire career, Smith has been making movies that most studios wouldn’t ever consider making, and plenty of sequels and connected movies to boot. Like many of his films, Mallrats 2 would sit right in the middle of the stories the writer/director has been telling his whole career through movies such as Clerks and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. As a director who has not produced a supersized blockbuster, Smith has instead proven that he can produce relatively low-budget movies that please his audience and usually produce a profit on the back of it.

Several of Smith’s movies have had their setbacks, and Mallrats 2 has been through a tough ride that is not over yet. However, if there is one thing that Smith is good at, it is continuing to knock on doors until one of them opens, and that is why it would be foolish to believe that we will not see the Mallrats sequel finally come to fruition sometime in the future.