Kevin Smith's Mallrats Gets Its Own Art Show In Celebration Of 25th Anniversary

When do you get to see the sailboat? Maybe sooner than you think! The art of Mallrats, Kevin [...]

By Russ Burlingame

When do you get to see the sailboat? Maybe sooner than you think! The art of Mallrats, Kevin Smith's sophomore feature film, is the theme for a new exhibition made to celebrate the movie's 25th anniversary. Gallery 1988, a pop culture art gallery in Los Angeles, is set to debut the new show tomorrow, and Smith himself is (as you might expect) as excited as anybody. The film, which was a box office flop on release, found an audience on home video, blowing off the shelves at Blockbuster Videos across the country and earning Smith even more fans on laserdisc and DVD, where a commentary track that accompanied the film was a star-studded and hilarious affair

Now, after characters from the film appeared in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot last year, Mallrats is getting a sequel. Finished during quarantine, The Twilight of the Mallrats is expected to bring back almost all of the original film's principal cast and will start shooting as soon as it's safe to do so, post-pandemic restrictions.

You can se Smith's tweet below

You can follow the link to their website, but so far there's only a single image there, teasing that the show opens tomorrow. Another show, also opening tomorrow, will likely attract some of our audience's attention, too; it's fake gig posters for fictional bands, including one for a Josie and the Pussycats 50th anniversary gig.

During the pandemic lockdown, Smith finished his script for the Mallrats sequel and has been working on getting the band -- including Batman himself, Ben Affleck -- back together for the follow-up.

"[Ben Affleck] cameo-ed in Reboot, far more than a cameo, but we were texting, and I was just like ... He had mentioned Mallrats because he mentioned his oldest daughter makes fun of him for Mallrats because of how he's dressed in the movie... She's like, 'Where'd you get those clothes?' He's like, 'I don't know.' So I was like, 'Well, you'll be able to tell her that you're in the next Mallrats if you want to come out and cameo.' And he was like, 'She likes it too much. Better be more than one scene cameo, dude. Put me in a lot.' I said, 'All right, done and done.'"

When asked about starting production, Smith said he's hoping to get things going next year.

"2021 is what we're hoping for," Smith said of filming the sequel. "And we've been engaged deeply with the good folks at Universal a week-and-a-half ago. It took another very positive step forward. So I mean, it feels like it's going to happen. Now the big question is, how does it happen?"

The film will center on Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) and his daughter Banner (Aparna Brielle), as they navigate an as-yet-undisclosed challenge that, according to some early comments by Smith, may have been kicked off by Shannon Hamilton (Affleck), who got sent to prison at the end of the first Mallrats because of Brodie's intervention.

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