Over 20 years into his career, filmmaker Kevin Smith hasn't been so successful bringing his storytelling stylings to television, where he's more active in acting and directing. It seemed that would change in a huge way when it was announced his idea for a Mallrats follow-up was being spun from a feature into a TV show, but it sounds like Mallbrats' (which would have been the name of the new show) plans have either been shelved or tossed out completely. Smith will focus on creating a new Jay and Silent Bob flick instead, but the way he puts it, it was a lack of interest that killed Mallbrats. In his words:
Sadly, Clerks III can't happen (one of our four leads opted out of the flick). So I worked on a Mallrats movie instead... which also didn't happen because it turned into a Mallrats series. I've pitched said sequel series to 6 different networks only to find no takers thus far.
That is pretty wild, as I would have thought places like Netflix or Amazon or Showtime would jump at the chance to head back into the cult classic View Askewniverse for another Mallrats project. (Kevin Smith had previously shared on social media that he'd also pitched to HBO and Hulu.) I could understand why, say, Mallbrats wouldn't get picked up by History Channel or Nickelodeon or BET. But why no Mallrats love from the streaming and premium networks?
Perhaps it's because the plot of the project would have involved the original characters' children, which might not necessarily be the most promising path for an R-rated TV show, at least in the eyes of studios. Kevin Smith coupled that initial announcement of the 10-episode Mallbrats plan with directly pointing out that Universal owns Mallrats and thus had the right to choose what happened to its future. So it's entirely possible that the studio dropped some notes about the story that didn't fully jive with Smith's intentions, upending the tonal balance.
In his Instagram post announcing the new Jay and Silent Bob project, he reiterated his lack of a controlling position in what happens to his first batch of films.
Since I sold Clerks and Mallrats years ago, they're owned by others, which limits my moves with my own material. I don't mind: back in the day, all I ever wanted to do was sell my stuff so I could be in the movie biz in the first place. So I don't own Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy or Dogma.
With movies like Yoga Hosers and Tusk, Kevin Smith is definitely making the movies HE wants to make right now, and he's having fun interjecting superhero TV between bigger projects. So while we're glad to see him excited about getting his snoogins on for more Jay and Silent Bob, I can't help but be sad that we probably won't get to see Brody again, and I already bought all these chocolate-covered pretzels!
While waiting on more from two of cinema's most well-known stoners, go back and watch Clerks: The Animated Series, which is still amazing. And then head to our midseason premiere schedule to see what else is hitting the small screen soon.
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