Kevin Smith keeps on working and making these low-budget personal statements. Nothing is going to stop him. He’s now eyeing to revisit a 30-year-old cult classic.
In a recent sit down with Deadline for his new film “The 4:30 Movie,” Smith confirmed that he’s negotiating with Universal to give up the rights to his 1995 film “Mallrats” so he can make a sequel if the studio doesn’t want to make one itself.
Smith says finding the money to independently finance the sequel would be a non-issue. There would also be a decent-sized arthouse audience for “Mallrats 2,” in the same way that Smith’s “Clerks 2” ended up making some real dough ($27M gross against a $5M budget).
This comes a few months after Smith stated he had scrapped the idea of “Mallrats 2” because of rights issues, but it does look like there might be some kind of compromise coming between himself and Universal. He has also mentioned, multiple times, that the script had already been written.
“Mallrats,” released just one year after “Clerks,” starred Jason Lee, Jeremy London, Michael Rooker, Claire Forlani, and the late Shannen Doherty. It was this charming comedy about two losers, who, after being dumped by their girlfriends decide to spend a day at the mall — and try and win their girls back.
Smith’s brand of slacker comedy was all the rage in the ‘90s with the filmmaker becoming the spokesman for a misfit generation of geeky basement dwellers and dick jokes with films such as “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy,” and “Dogma.” These last 20 years, he’s been mostly directing B-movies and low-rent Hollywood vehicles (“Yoga Hosers,” “Red State” “Tusk,” “Cop Out,” “Clerks III”).
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