Kevin Smith knows how to talk the talk, especially when it comes to his own interconnected movie universe, the View Askewniverse. For several years, the verbose filmmaker has dropped hints about a Mallrats sequel, right up until spring of 2015 when casting fever saw most of the original film cast signing up to reprise their roles. We hate to break it to you diehard Smith fans, but as of today, Mallrats 2 the movie has been scuppered… in favor of a TV series.
Currently doing the press rounds for his Nazi sausage movie (no, really) Yoga Hosers, Smith stopped by Philadelphia’s 93.3 radio station for a segment on Preston and Steve’s morning show. It was during this interview that Smith revealed he and Universal were close to making this TV dream a reality.
“It is happening,” Smith said on the air. “It’s taking us a longer time to build it, but what we did was reconfigured it. You know, Mallrats is a 20 year old movie, and the idea of sequelizing a 20-year-old movie to some people is like, ‘Why would you bother? It wasn’t successful the first time. What’d you guys make?’ We’re like, ‘Two million?’ ‘Alright, well, I don’t know if the world is screaming out for this.’ However, I went and directed an episode of The Flash, and when I went up there, it was kind of a weird game changer for my career. I felt at home in the medium.”
This marks the second time Smith has turned to the small-screen format to continue one of his own franchises. Clerks had a short-lived run as an animated series which was quickly axed, but has since managed to survive on home video. With some live-action TV experience under his belt, here’s hoping that Mallrats 2 won’t suffer a similar fate – and might manage to make it past two episodes before getting cancelled.