Last year turned out to be pretty good for Kevin Smith. After a few years in the cinematic wilderness, Smith returned to his View Askew roots with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and while it wasn’t a critical favorite his fans seemed to love it. That got Smith inspired to finally move forward on that Clerks 3 script he’s been promising for years, and at the time I expressed some skepticism because of that. Well, this latest announcement he’s made is exactly why.
Smith took to Instagram and announced that he’s now also working on a Mallrats sequel, titled Twilight of the Mallrats. Comic book fans are probably seeing that title and guessing it’s a play on Alan Moore’s unpublished series, Twilight of the Superheroes, a Ragnarok-level event that would’ve decimated the heroes of the DC Comics universe. If so, that wouldn’t bode well for forever nerds Brodie Bruce and T.S. Quint, played by Jason Lee and Jeremy London in Smith’s 1995 film.
Mallrats was Smith’s followup to his indie darling, Clerks, and…well, it wasn’t well-received and was a massive failure. It’s now seen as something of a cult classic, and I’ll confess to it being my favorite Smith film for quite a long time.
Here’s what Smith had to say on social media, “It’s gonna be hard for 2020 to measure up to 2019 – but I’m off to a fun start by writing stuff for Brodie Bruce & Co. to say in the new script I’m calling TWILIGHT OF THE MALLRATS! The CLERKS III script is also underway, so we’ll see which flick will be my first film of the roaring 20’s!”
So these are two projects that Smith teased fans with for a very long time, but something else always gets in the way. Now the two projects are getting in one another’s way, and I can’t help but feel like this is a step back for both. I hope I’m wrong.
