Kevin Smith confirms he will begin filming ‘Mallrats 2’ in 2016 and the entire movie will serve as a final tribute to a producer who died last year while still touting the virtues of the first movie…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
At one point not too long ago Kevin Smith was ready to walk away from Hollywood forever and put his days as a director behind him, but a recent spark in creativity and inspiration have led the ‘Clerks’ creator to a slew of new projects including two sequels coming in the next couple of years.
Smith will begin work on ‘Clerks 3’ in June, bringing his first film full circle as he finishes writing the stories of the characters who helped launch his career in one of the most successful independent movies ever produced.
Following ‘Clerks 3’, Smith will then finish his Canadian horror trilogy with the film ‘Moose Jaws’, which is exactly what it sounds like — a scary movie based around a man eating moose. Once he wraps that movie, Smith is ready to go back to another of his earliest works as he will begin principle production on ‘Mallrats 2’, over 20 years after the first film was released in theaters.
Smith teased the project on Twitter, but went into further detail on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast released this week.
“I hate to disappoint people but yes, I am doing Mallrats 2,” Smith said.
Mallrats was a commercial disaster at the theater only earning $2.1 million at the box office, but the movie lived on in video sales and has become a cult classic over the years. The movie also kicked off long standing relationships with several notable actors including Jason Lee and of course Ben Affleck, who starred in one of the supporting roles in the movie.
Smith’s decision to go back and do a second ‘Mallrats’ movie came primarily as a way to honor a friend who worked on the original film in 1995 and then passed away in 2014.
“My friend about a year ago Jim Jacks, who was a producer on Mallrats died, and we talked about him on the show and what a good dude he was and Jim Jacks for years was always like ‘we should do a sequel’ because while we were shooting the movie he was like ‘this is going to make $100 million and he was obviously off his fucking rocker but he was like ‘you’ve got to come up with a sequel’,” Smith explained.
“I wanted to honor the man in some way and this is how we’re going to do it. We’re finally going to make the movie that I wish to Christ I had made when he was living. So we’re gonna finally fucking make Mallrats 2.”
Smith has already started to work on a script for the movie in between numerous podcasts, post production on his latest film ‘Yoga Hosers’ as well as preparation for ‘Clerks 3’ to start shooting in Philadelphia in June.
There’s been no word yet on possible returning cast, but Smith has maintained friendships with many of the folks in the original film so it’s definitely possible most of them could return for the sequel.
Snooch to the nooch.
