Kevin Smith revealed recently that instead of doing Mallrats 2 as a movie, he’s now developing a full blow TV series based on his original film…
Get ready to fall in love with the smell of commerce in the morning all over again.
The 1995 cult classic Mallrats is getting a sequel, but you won’t find out what’s happening to Brodie and TS on the big screen. Instead, writer and director Kevin Smith is developing Mallrats into a 10-episode TV series alongside Universal.
Smith revealed his plans for Mallrats when speaking to WMMR’s Preston and Steve Show recently.
“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,” Smith said. “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 instead.”
According to Smith the entire deal came about because he had an idea to do a Mallrats sequel — titled Mallbrats — about the next generation of mall going kids, but once he finished a script he found out something he didn’t expect.
Universal — the studio that financed and owns the original Mallrats — doesn’t let property go, even to the original creator so the only way Smith was going to be able to do a sequel was to work with them on a new version of the movie.
So Smith met with Universal and instead of producing a stand alone sequel, the studio instead decided to capitalize on the director’s recent turn to television where he helmed an episode of The Flash this past season as well as developing The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai for TV as well and now they are doing Mallrats as a series.
“Who knew TV would be the salvation of that movie,” Smith added.
During the interview, Smith also confirmed that along with MGM, they did find a TV home for his Buckaroo Banzai series, although he couldn’t state which network bought the new TV show until the deal was finalized.
