Kevin Smith Confirms He's Still Working on His MALLRATS Sequel Titled TWILIGHT OF THE MALLRATS

In 2015 Kevin Smith announced that he was developing a sequel to his 1995 film Mallrats. Smith has moved forward with other projects since then, but it looks like this next Mallrats film will be a priority for him in 2020.

Smith recently shared an update on Instragam revealing that the title of the film is Twilight of the Mallrats. He previously called it Mallbrats and he wanted to bring back to the entire original cast including Jason Lee, Shannen Doherty, Ethan Suplee, Jeremy London, Renee Humphry, Claire Forlani, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Mewes, Stan Lee, Michael Rooker, Sven-Ole Thorsen,and even Ben Affleck.

The filmmaker also previously laid out the story he was looking to tell:

“It’s 20 years later and the mall is on the brink of shutting down. Just like the mall everywhere it’s kind of on the way out…So it takes place as the mall is about to close and Brody Bruce, the Jason Lee character, is throwing his… he’s got a comic book store, Body Bruce’s Secret Stash, which we had introduced in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He has moved it into the mall and he’s throwing this Mallathon Comic Con to try to keep the mall alive. He’s like the people in Back to the Future – ‘Save the clock tower’ – he’s trying to save the mall and shit… The whole place finally has a crowd in it for the first time in years and the movie is stolen from Die Hard so in the middle of the Comic Con terrorists take over the mall and so originally the title of the script was Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall. I don’t think Fox is going to let us call it that so we might have to call it something else, but Brody teams up with everyone you remember and love from this movie, 18 characters from this movie come back in Mallrats 2 and then we add another generation as well, their kids as well.”

There’s no word on if that’s still the direction that he wants to take the story, but I imagine at least some of the elements will make it into his current iteration of the story. Smith was looking at developing this into a series at one point, but that obviously didn’t pan out. When talking about that, he explained the story further saying:

"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.

"Mallrats is high school and family melodrama with cursing in it. It’s like Degrassi Junior High if everyone said ‘motherfucker’ and it was set in America. I love it so much. I cannot wait to do that. It excites me just to think about it."

Well, I’m happy to see that this is a project that he still hasn’t given up on! He’s also working on a Clerks III script, and he’s not sure which of the two he’ll end up making first. You can read his update in the Instagram post below:

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2019 was seriously one of the best years of my life! So many of my dreams came true this year, as well as a few big things too dazzling to even dare dream about! From the return of @jayandsilentbob, to having my career literally cemented at the legendary @chinesetheatres, to Clerks being accepted into the @librarycongress - 2019 kept giving and giving! Sooooo glad I didn’t drop dead back in 2018, because I would’ve missed all the stuff I listed with my pic. Thank you to everyone who supported the #jayandsilentbob #rebootroadshow Tour: we’ve made over 3 million bucks from our 2 @fathomevents screenings and the 37 cities we’ve visited so far (Tour resumes January 10th in Oakland for another 25 cities through Feb 26). Many thanks for powering my dopey dream of reopening the Askewniverse and making me and @jaymewes feel so welcomed in all your towns and cities! It’s gonna be hard for 2020 to measure up to 2019 - but I’m off to a fun start by writing stuff for Brodie Bruce & Co. to say in the new script I’m calling TWILIGHT OF THE MALLRATS! The CLERKS III script is also underway, so we’ll see which flick will be my first film of the roaring 20’s! But tonight, I end the year like I always do - standing on the stage at the @hollywoodimprov with @ralphgarman, making BABBLE until the Ball drops (a few tix left at the link in my bio)! It was a decade that began badly with COP OUT and the TOO FAT TO FLY incident. The decade of the Red State Tour, @tuskthemovie and @yogahosers! It was the decade in which I almost died of a massive heart attack, and the decade where I went Vegan and got down to my high school weight! Who knows what the next decade holds in store for us - but I’m ready to turn the page and find out! Happy New Year, my friends! (Jedi Kev piece by @giovanni_hollywood2008.) #KevinSmith #newyearseve #2019

A post shared by Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) on Dec 31, 2019 at 9:46am PST