“Exclusive: “I feel like the Mallrats series is going to be insanely John Hughes-like, just a little dirtier”, Kevin Smith explains...”
Kevin Smith was in London this week to promote his new film Yoga Hosers, the second part of his Truth North trilogy that kicked off with Tusk. We interviewed him about the movie, and also found some time to talk about the Mallrats TV show sequel. The full interview will appear later this year, but here's what he had to say about Mallrats.
“Right now, the deal with Universal is locked”, Smith explained. “So we go out right after [San Diego] Comic-Con, and pitch to all the networks and streaming networks as well, to find a home. So, I feel pretty good about it. Universal, they have a pretty good track record at placing shows and whatnot.” Smith added that, “Within a month we’ll know what our future is going to be, which is amazing”.
Next, Smith talked about how he’s approaching the TV format:
“[It] gives me more time to tell that goofy story. You know, I would have had ninety minutes to tell that story, now you get like maybe ten half-hour episodes. It’s like five hours to tell the fucking same story, so I get to really flesh out the characters and make a fuck tonne of jokes and stuff. Um, and kind of bring them in gradually over the course of the show. So I look forward to it. A different kind of storytelling.
“It feels like working on a Mallrats comic book, an on-going series. I never would have imagined that this fucking movie that nobody saw when it came out, nobody liked, could sustain a life this long and wind up as a series. But I’m gonna think of it like – because if I think of it in big terms, like ‘it’s a TV show’, it’s kind of a little overwhelming – but if I think of it in terms, like, think of it like a comic book series... ‘you’ve always wanted to do a Mallrats comic book series, this is the way to do it. It just happens that you’re getting to use live actors at the end of the day’.
“So, it should be fun, for me at least. And that’s kind of been the leitmotif of my career lately, which is ‘make it fun for me’, usually at the expense of the audience. But this one will feel less like, you know, Tusk and Yoga Hosers. Yoga Hosers and Tusk are just like batshit stupid movies. Mallrats the series won’t be that. It’ll be kinda like Mallrats but stretched longer.”
Smith also touched upon his big inspiration on both versions of Mallrats, the legendary John Hughes:
“Mallrats was me trying to make a John Hughes movie. So now it’s like, you know, thinking about making Mallrats a series, that’s where my head goes most often, it’s like, ‘oh my god, Hughes is what fed you.’
“So I’ve been going back and rewatching the entire John Hughes canon veraciously, because before you head out and try and create your thing, it’s always great to vibe like a fucking really sumptuous creative meal of somebody else’s self-expression, that like rocks your world in a big bad way. And those are the building blocks of what I became today. So I feel like the Mallrats series is going to be insanely John Hughes-like, just a little dirtier, because I’m not as sophisticated as John Hughes was. But that’s what fed Mallrats the movie, and that’s what’s gonna feed the series as well.
And finally, Smith explained what part his daughter Harley Quinn Smith is going to play in the Mallrats show: “Harley’s going to play [Jason Lee's character] Brodie Bruce’s daughter, Banner Bruce.”
After I stopped laughing, Smith said “Yeah, I like that. It makes me smile.”
More on Mallrats 2 as we hear it. Yoga Hosers is released in the UK later this year.