Kevin Smith's 'Mallrats' Sequel Will Tackle The Illusion Of "Happily Ever After"

Writer/director Kevin Smith has definitely made the most of his time in quarantine. On top of his regular podcasts and partaking in a recent watch party of Mallrats, he's been working on the script for a sequel to the 1995 cult classic that will bring back the whole gang. The movie is called Twilight of the Mallrats, and now that Smith has completed the first draft of the movie, he's given fans a taste of what they can expect, and it sounds like maybe there's not quite as much of a "happily ever after" as the end of the original movie seemed to indicate.

Here's the post Kevin Smith made to Instagram announcing completion of the first draft of the Mallrats sequel:

As you can see in the Instagram post above, Smith provides a brief logline about what the sequel will focus on, and it sufficiently explains what the title means. Smith wrote:

"25 years after the original, Brodie Bruce will be back for an unnecessary sequel set against the Mallpocalypse! Rene, Willam, Gwen, Brandy, T.S., Trish, Mr. Svenning, LaFours and the rebooted [Jay and Silent Bob] are the returning 'Rats in an Askewniverse imagining about what happens when the sidewalk sales end, and 'happily ever after' is easier to say than live! The #jayandsilentbob stuff is some of my favorite conceptual comedy I've ever written but the whole script is silly, sentimental and sweet."

First of all, that means Jason Lee, Jeremy London, Shannen Doherty, Claire Forlani, Joey Lauren Adams, Renée Humphrey, Ethan Suplee, Michael Rooker and even Sven-Ole Thorsen as the strict mall security guard LaFours. And of course, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith will be back as Jay and Silent Bob. However, there's no mention of Ben Affleck coming back as Shannon Hamilton, the douchebag employee from the Fashionable Male store in the mall. But maybe that'll be a surprise cameo.

As for the story, it's interesting that Kevin Smith is approaching this from a rather depressing standpoint. The idea of the mall getting shut down and the Mallrats characters having to face the prospect of not having a happily ever after that seemed guaranteed by the epilogue of the original movie is a surprisingly grounded approach to such a silly movie. I'm sure there will be plenty of goofy comedy again, but this feels like a rather introspective concept from Kevin Smith.

Unfortunately, it'll be a long time before we find out. Twilight of the Mallrats doesn't have a distributor yet, and with Hollywood production shutdown indefinitely, there's no telling when it might get in front of a camera. But I'm certainly interested in seeing how Smith approaches these characters after 25 years. In the meantime, Kevin Smith will continue to keep busy during quarantine by working on a new draft of Moose Jaws, the third installment of his Canadian-set horror trilogy, and the revamped Clerks 3 that we heard about recently. So Kevin Smith fans have plenty to look forward to.