Kevin Smith is a busy guy. Besides directing what equals out to be roughly a film per year, he produces the television show Comic Book Men on AMC, and he runs an extremely successful podcast empire. To say that the guy is a workaholic is an understatement. A few days ago, Smith updated his twttersphere following with his schedule for the upcoming year and a half. The big shocker here is that smith hinted what may lay beyond this schedule, Mallrats 2. While this is not necessarily definitive news that the movie will happen, it is a good sign that we may get a sequel to Smith’s cult classic in the coming years.
After Smith finishes the final days of shooting on his latest film, Yoga Hosers, the director plans to begin production on Clerks III, which is set to begin production this May. He will then move on to Hit Somebody, his long in the works life story of a hockey player that was once a two part film but is now a miniseries. Smith will then move on to Moose Jaws, which will be the third part of his “True North Trilogy” (The first two being Tusk and Yoga Hosers) in February 2016. After that, however, the writer/director dropped the news that no one was expecting: “But after that? I smell a rat…”
We shoot CLERKS III in May. HIT SOMEBODY shoots September to Christmas. Then in Feb 2016, we do MOOSE JAWS. But after that? I smell a rat…
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) March 12, 2015
Smith then took to the latest episode of his Hollywood Babble-On podcast to give more clarity to the situation:
About a year and change ago now Jim Jacks, who was a producer on Mallrats, died. And we talked about him during the show and what a good dude he was….Mallrats came out and died at the box office. It only found an audience later on. But for years Jim Jacks would always be like “We should do a sequel.” Because when we were making the movie he was like “This is gonna make $100 million.” He was obviously off his fuckin’ rocker. But he was like “You’ve gotta come up with a sequel.” “And I was like, “I have one already.” “What is it?” Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall. And he was like “Oh thats perfect we’ll do it.” So the movie came out, didn’t do any business and no talk of a sequel ever came up again at the studio and what not. But Jim Jacks never fucking lost faith. Even when I would kick Mallrats and make fun of it, Jacks was always the guy going “No man. Know what would be funny and what’s gonna redeem us? Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall.” So it was one of those things that was an on going theme in his life. As I said, he passed away a year ago. I had lost touch with him for quite a few years before that and this was the biggest fucking fan of movies you’ve ever known in your life. And Clerks was the thing that kicked off my career but Mallrats brought me into a complete different world and that movie doesn’t get made without this dude at Universal going “Let’s make it, let’s make it.” So I felt real shitty about missing the last years of his life and I met some people who were like, “We ate with Jim every fucking Thursday night and he still talked about you.” I hadn’t seen him in years and he was still talking about me and that movie. So a year ago I was sitting here talking about this shit and I was like “I wanna honor the man in some way” and this is how we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna finally make the movie I wish to christ I made when he was living, man. So were finally going to make Mallrats 2.
Will Mallrats 2 actually see the light of day? What are your thoughts on the sequel? Check back to find out more information as we receive it. In the meantime, here is the original trailer for Mallrats: [su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/eOd5zJLsZEc”][su_youtube url=”http://youtu.be/vw5vcUPyL90″][/su_youtube]