Kevin Smith is Bringing Back MALLRATS as a 10-Part Series
Kevin Smith is going back to basics...again! After a long dabble in the indie horror genre, it looks like the geek-acclaimed director is going to resurrect his classic Mallrats as a 10-part series! Uproxx says Smith shared how the decision came to be on the Preston and Steve show on 93.3 WMMR:
"I called my agency and I said, ‘Hey man, can I just make a Mallrats sequel? Universal owns it, but do I really need to make this with Universal? Can’t I just write a script and buy the title from them?’And the agent told me, ‘Yeah, absolutely, they’ll let it go.’
And I said, ‘Are you positive? Because I don’t want to start this if that’s not the case.’ He says, ‘Oh yeah, there are three ways you can make this movie: You finance it yourself; you finance it with the studio, co-financed; or they finance it, but, you know, it’ll probably be, since it’s an old movie and it’s a small title, it’ll probably be you financing it yourself."
“So, while I’m in that world and space [of making Buckaroo Banzai], a couple months ago, we started reconfiguring the idea of doing Mallrats not as a film but as a series, and Universal and I are just about to close our deal to do Mallrats the series. Then we take it out into the world and find a home for it. So, instead of doing a Mallrats movie, I’m going to do 10 episodes of a Mallrats series.”
The 10-part series will be shot in the original mall it was filmed at, in Exton, Pennsylvania, and then shopped to networks for a release. Smith has been working on a film sequel to Mallrats (called Mallbrats) for a little over a year, and at one point he had most of the original cast back on board, but no word about whether they'd come along for the revamped TV show version. The original cast included Jason Lee, Michael Rooker, Shannon Doherty, and Ben Affleck, and it would be awesome if Smith could score them all back for the series. Chances are Affleck is too caught up in the DC world to commit to it, but I'd just be happy to see Jason Mewes and Jason Lee again!