With Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, writer and director Kevin Smith dug back into his interconnected series of comedies known as the View Askewniverse. The movie felt like a farewell of sorts to characters from Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but instead, Smith seems to be reinvigorated to attempt another sequel to one of his movies.

Recently we heard that Kevin Smith was taking another crack at making Mallrats 2 happen. The idea has been kicked around before, and it was even considered as a TV series at one point. But now he’s back with a new focus and a new direction. In fact, Smith recently spoke with our own Peter Sciretta about Mallrats 2, and he revealed where his head’s at for the sequel this time.

In Peter Sciretta’s Ordinary Adventures video series, our editor-in-chief went to a gallery opening featuring a new piece of artwork by Shag (aka Josh Agle) that pays tribute to all of Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse movies. In addition to chatting about Smith’s love of Shag’s artwork and Star Wars, conversation eventually turned to Mallrats 2, which Smith has only barely just started writing. The filmmaker said:

“I’ve been writing it all for the last…96 hours. I had to stop to come here. I’m doing this kind of obsessive re-writing within the writing. So rather than just write all the way to the end, I write, and then go back and re-write, go back and re-writer. Now I just started portioning it out to people to see, ‘What do you think?'”

Interestingly enough, Smith had a revelation about his own work on Mallrats, and seemingly Mallrats 2, regarding Jason Lee‘s character Brodie Bruce. Smith explains:

“I had to go back and find the DNA of Mallrats, which was Animal House and Caddyshack. And when you look at it, it’s so weird, because there is no character arc. Because those movies had no character arcs. They were underdogs, and they were kind of deplorable in some cases, but at least they were better than the Nazis next door.”

As for whether or not Brodie Bruce will have a proper character arc for Mallrats 2, that remains to be seen. That character has enjoyed quite a storied history in the View Askewniverse, where he was made host of The Tonight Show and then went on to own his own comic book shop. Brodie’s story in Mallrats, which involves his frustrated girlfriend Rene (Shannon Doherty) is secondary to the love story between T.S. (Jeremy London) and Brandi (Claire Forlani), and there’s no change in his behavior or personality throughout the movie. So what will his story be in Mallrats 2? We’ll have to wait and see.

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