Kevin Smith Compares the First Script of TWILIGHT OF THE MALLRATS to 'DIE HARD in a Mall'

Kevin Smith has been hard at work during the pandemic on his script for the upcoming sequel, Twilight of the Mallrats. Smith revealed that he finished writing the sequel after talking a few weeks before about how he worked the pandemic’s effects on shopping malls into the story. He says this script is funny, and he’s really excited with the outcome, but this wasn’t the first concept he had for the Mallrats revisit.

In an interview with the IMDB podcast, Movies That Changed My Life, Smith said:

“This one is the first draft of Twilight of the Mallrats, but it’s the second Mallrats sequel script that I’ve written," Smith revealed. "There was one I wrote years ago that was called Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall. Most of that wound up becoming Jay & Silent Bob Reboot. The whole third act of Jay & Silent Bob Reboot was the whole third act of Mallrats 2. They took over the mall instead of Chronic Con, and in Jay & Silent Bob Reboot they were Russian terrorists but in Mallrats 2 they were Canadian terrorists taking over the mall, and Brody was forced into this John McClane type position. It’s fun, but I would look at it and be like, if you were a fan of Mallrats and 25 years later somebody was doing it again, you’d be like, ‘What would that be like,’ and you walked in and it was Die Hard, you might be like, ‘Why call it Mallrats? Just call it something else and start from scratch.’” He added that the new script “more closely resembles what the world knows Mallrats to be; a day in the life at the shopping center.”

While his first idea would have undoubtedly been fun, it feels like the updated script is a more true Smith film, and will do more justice to the fans and characters they love. We don’t yet have a release date for Twilight of the Mallrats, but with the script finished, and Hollywood slowly reopening, we should hear something soon. Are you excited for this sequel? Would you have liked to have seen Die Hard in a Mall?