The sad news broke today that Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed alum Shannen Doherty passed away at age 53. “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease,” Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane shared in a statement. Doherty had been very open about her illness and spent much of the last year sharing stories about her life and career on a podcast. Many people who worked with Doherty over the years have taken to social media today to honor her, including Kevin Smith. Back in 1995, Doherty starred in Smith’s sophomore feature, Mallrats.
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“Long before any other pop culture figure ‘broke the internet’ @theshando singlehandedly shattered it in the early 90s,” Smith began. “This is an incredible accomplishment considering the internet as we know it didn’t even exist yet. I (and the rest of the known universe) used to watch ‘the girl from #heathers’ every week on @beverlyhills90210. I usually did so while jockeying the register at @quickstopgroceries – so it was ironic that the film I’d eventually make there would lead to #shannendoherty. @malcolm.ingram is most responsible for Shannen being in #mallrats. When I told him my next flick was essentially ‘Clerks in a Mall,’ Malcolm insisted ‘Then you gotta cast Doherty! She’s an American icon!’ That she was, and so much more.”
“Shannen was a true talent and she became a good friend, but lest anyone forget, she was the only reason Mallrats got green-lit in 1995. That’s because Shannen was one of the most famous people on the planet – and the fact that she picked Mallrats as her first follow-up to 90210 *made* that movie happen. I cherish the memories of Shannen walking her German Shepherd around the @edenprairiecenter every morning, or whenever she’d gossip and giggle between takes. At the junket for Rats, we established a ritual we kept up for years, where she wrote ‘dick’ over my half of our @filmthreat cover while I wrote ‘bitch’ over her pic.”
“But while Shannen was no shrinking violet and she gave as good as she got (particularly to the paparazzi), she was never anything but sweet to me,” he continued. “I told her back in December when I was on her podcast that I felt like the girl I used to watch on TV at Quick Stop was there to welcome me when I got into show business. Fuck… She’s died way too soon. I already miss you, Do-Do. Thank you for going to the Mall with me – and for thirty years of friendship. My Canadian pal was right: you are (and always will be) an American icon.” You can view his post below:
Will Twilight of the Mallrats Happen?
In 2015, Smith announced a sequel to Mallrats and revealed a year later that he had “reconfigured” the movie sequel, originally titled MallBrats, as a 10-episode Mallrats series after a “protracted negotiation” with Universal. Smith later reworked Mallrats the Series back into a movie and revealed in 2020 that he had completed a 98-page first draft for Twilight of the Mallrats. Smith called the project an “unnecessary sequel set against the Mallpocalypse” with the “entire cast” returning. However, the project was stalled again, and Smith went on to make Clerks III instead.
“All I’ve heard about Mallrats 2 is that I believe Kevin wrote a script, he asked a bunch of people if they would do it, and everybody — from what I was told — said yes,” Ethan Suplee, who played the 3D sailboat starer Willam, said during an appearance at Pennsylvania’s Steel City Con last year. “[But] the rights are tied up at Universal, and Universal is not saying yes to making the movie.”
Currently, it is unclear if the movie will ever get off the ground, but it’s hard to imagine Mallrats without Doherty. Our thoughts go out to her friends and family at this difficult time.
