A sequel to Kevin Smith’s comedy Mallrats is one of the rare pleasant surprises to come out of this year. The popular flick is turning 25, with the sequel set to follow the original movie’s cast of characters all these years later. While it was believed that Mallrats 2 would only feature a small handful of familiar characters, writer/director Kevin Smith has been setting the record straight, revealing that “everybody” comes back, including Marvel icon Stan Lee.
“Everybody comes back. T.S. has a really like, poignant part too. I’m very happy with T.S.’s part too. The thing I’m most happy about… the thing I feel most clever about in regard to the movie, obviously one of us can’t come back, right? Stan’s gone. So, there is a Stan Lee scene, and it makes absolute perfect sense. And when you see it, it’ll fucking break your heart and make you cry and while you’re laughing. It is so like, I’m not saying I’m clever, but it’s f*cking clever. And I get to pull it off without bringing in somebody that’s not part of the family, so to speak. It’s pretty damn wonderful. So, he’s represented as well. He’s a big figure, obviously, in Brodie’s life.”
Along with T.S. Quint, played by Jeremy London, and Brandy Svenning, played by Claire Forlani, Smith reveals that he has even devised a way to bring back comic book legend Stan Lee, who sadly passed away in 2018. Lee starred in a significant cameo in the first Mallrats, offering Jason Lee’s character Brodie Bruce some much-needed romantic advice. How Smith is bringing back Stan Lee remains a mystery, though it is unlikely it will be in the literal sense. In any case, Smith sounds very proud of what he has concocted, even if he does say so himself.
Kevin Smith also offered some insight into what fans can expect from Twilight of the Mallrats, and Brodie in particular, who has become insufferable in the eyes of his daughter, Banner, due to being right about pop culture and the wider embrace of comic books.
“Brodie’s a character that like, was awarded a second bite of the apple because he was right. Like, you know, one of Banner’s frustrations with her father is that he’s so like, ‘I was right. Like the culture turned in my way comic book culture, I predicted this.’ So, he’s insufferable to her for that reason.”
The first Mallrats follows T.S. and his best friend, Brodie, who take a trip to the mall after their girlfriends break up with them. T.S.’s girlfriend, Brandi, is participating in a dating game show at the mall, which was the initial cause of their breakup. Meanwhile, Brodie’s ex, Rene, has begun dating sleazy store manager Shannon. T.S. and Brodie seek out ways to ruin the game show, hunted all the while by Brandi’s father, Jared.
Twilight of the Mallrats picks up with the characters all these years later, bringing back the original characters and introducing a few new ones. The movie will focus on Brodie and his daughter and the death of the mall. “The Brodie that we met in Mallrats has only been proven right in life,” Smith has revealed previously. “The world came around to his way of thinking. So, based on that, Brodie never really had to grow up and now, at this juncture in time, we face the moment when he might actually have to become an adult.” This comes to us from Comicbook.com.
