MALLRATS AT 25
From sophomore slump to prophetic cult classic, KEVIN SMITH tells Total Film the rollercoaster story behind his pop-culture-lovin’ second feature, Mallrats. Plus, the beloved writer/director shares his lockdown viewing picks.
Back in 1995, Mallrats was absolutely classified as a sophomore slump - and should have been,” admits director Kevin Smith, revisiting his out-of-time second feature on its 25th birthday. “Ironically enough, the movie has aged incredibly well - to the point where nobody remembers its failures but the director himself. He carries it with him like a cross - or herpes.”
Back in the early ’90s, Smith was riding high on a wave of unexpected success following the release of his hit debut feature Clerks - a rough-and-ready convenience-store comedy that helped herald in a whole new era of indie cinema. It was during his whirlwind period that Smith first conceived of the idea for its follow-up, a movie that celebrated all the colourful corners of pop culture that he loved from his youth - from comics to movies and everything in between. On paper, Mallrats looked set to be a guaranteed crowd-pleaser but on release, audiences had different ideas.
“The dark origins of Mallrats trace right back to Sundance
1994 and the festival’s awards ceremony,” says Smith, taking us back to a time where the internet was still in its infancy, movie disagreements had to be settled face-to-face and Marvel adventures existed solely on the page. “Clerks had won the Filmmaker Trophy. I thought it might have been a Carrielike joke where I get up on stage and they dump pig’s blood on me,” he laughs, “but afterwards there was a party, where I met Jim Jacks. Jacks was the producer of Tombstone, Tremors and Raising Arizona - and he loved Clerks. He asked me if I knew what I wanted to do next and I said ‘I’ve been thinking about making a movie called Mallrats - which was Clerks but in a mall.’”
Unbeknown to Smith, Jacks had come close to buying Clerks for Universal
before being bought out by Miramax and when he learned of Smith’s second feature, he was keen to snap it up. “January of ’94 was when I first said the idea out loud and March of ’94 was when I pitched it to Universal; they made it official and we started developing Mallrats.” Again set in the world of retail, Smith’s second film was a day-in-the-life story following the misadventures of recently dumped geeks T.S. Quint (Jeremy London) and Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) and saw the return of two familiar faces. “Jacks was all for bringing over Jay and Silent Bob, which was something I wanted to do because I realised if I could keep Jason Mewes employed, he would stop borrowing money from me,” laughs Smith, discussing Jay’s real-life alter ego.
“I got to own the characters after Clerks so I was able to put them into Mallrats.”
DON'T DO DRUGS
Still, the inclusion of Jay and his hetero life mate Silent Bob came with a few provisos: “Jacks pushed for a more user-friendly Jay and Silent Bob,” he tells Total Film. “He was like, ‘I know they’re drug dealers but maybe lessen the drugs here. They can still do it, they just don’t have to be in everybody’s face. Maybe they can be mischief makers?’ So thus began the softening of Jay and Silent Bob,” continues Smith, explaining why New Jersey’s infamous pot-dealers look more comic book-y in their second outing. “It’s something they comment on in Chasing Amy,” he points out. “The whole idea of Bluntman and Chronic in Chasing Amy is based on the rendition of Jay and Silent Bob in Mallrats and the commentary of them being like, ‘We don’t like that version of us - it’s very plasticy.’ A lot of people didn’t see Clerks so Mallrats was their first introduction to the characters,” adds Smith. “When they eventually meet them in the other movies they must be like, ‘Holy fuck, these guys are completely sanitised in Mallrats!’”
With the help of casting director Don Phillips, Smith was able to flesh out his cast with a variety of fresh-faced stars: “Don also cast Dazed And Confused which is why Mallrats looks like Dazed And Confused 2 in many places,” reasons Smith, commenting on their similar castlists. “There’s Ben Affleck, Joey [Lauren] Adams and Jason Lee – who wasn’t in Dazed And Confused but was on set because he was dating Marissa Ribisi at the time. Don brought in every famous face of young Hollywood – we saw them all, including Reese Witherspoon,” he adds, detailing some names that didn’t make the cut. “Jacks warned me about Ben Affleck. He said, ‘You’ve got to be careful with this guy, he’s got a potty mouth and your script has enough “fucks”.’ I fell in love with Ben during the auditions,” smiles Smith, fondly recalling the recruitment process for Mallrats’ big bad bully. “He was just so frank, matter-of-fact and real. I thought he was perfect.”
With his cast set, Smith travelled to a mall in Minnesota that gave his production free reign over its entire space. “We shot in the Eden Prairie Mall with the caveat that it never had to shut – which was fine because it was under 50 per cent store capacity at that point. It was mostly a ghost mall. We were shooting the middle of the day while the mall was still open.” Then there was Smith’s secret weapon - a piece of dream casting that would ultimately prove to be the lynchpin to Mallrats’ continued endurance, transforming it from sophomore slump to prophetic cult favourite.
“In the first draft of the movie there was no Stan Lee – there was just a comicbook guru guy named Stan Miller,” he reveals, sharing a temp-name that paid homage to Lee and fellow comics giant Frank Miller. “Jim Jacks said, ‘Why don’t you write it for Stan Lee?’ and I said ‘I didn’t know him.’ Jim goes, ‘Well, I do.’”
Through Jacks, Smith’s script soon found its way to the Marvel Comics legend and more amazingly, he was keen to jump aboard for one of his first on-screen cameos - under one condition. “He said, ‘I’d love to do it but I’ve got a little problem’,” remembers the director. “‘In your script you have me telling Brodie about the girl that got away. It’s a beautiful speech but if I do that as me, the girl at home is going to lock me out of the house. There’s only ever been Joanie. I can’t say there was someone I fell for that I didn’t wind up with and Joanie was my second choice – that’d hurt her feelings,’” he explains, detailing Lee’s concerns when it came to potentially upsetting his beloved wife. “He said, ‘Is it possible that after I talk to Brodie, I talk to his friend and tell him I was only kidding?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely, man’ – so my first one-on-one discussion with Stan Lee was essentially about how he never wanted to hurt his wife’s feelings. It was incredibly fucking sweet.”
Smith also fondly remembers Lee’s time shooting: “He was absolutely lovely. This was 1995, so his team told us we had to be real careful - the man was 70-something and for all we knew, he could die at any minute. Stan lived for another 24 years - he was not a frail old man,” he chuckles. “When he wasn’t working, he was being worshipped and photographed. I got our set photographer to snap me with Stan doing web-slinging hands. It was a glorious day where I got to work with my first living legend. He was everything you wanted him to be and he lent me deep cred that I still spend to this day.”
It has given Smith geek cred in the years that have followed, including a callback in one of the legend’s posthumous cameos. “Today, people want to know what Kevin Smith thinks about comic-book movies and you can tie all that to Stan being in Mallrats and me essentially being blessed by him. At the time, there were no Marvel movies and Stan wasn’t a household name. It was kind of like me introducing him to a whole new generation who maybe didn’t know who he was. Then years later, he was in Captain Marvel and returned the favour by reading a Mallrats script with my name on it. It was beautiful.”
PROBLEM CHILD
Despite its dream shoot, Mallrats failed to strike a chord with fans or critics. “It was my go-to joke,” says Smith looking back. “It was the kind of movie I’d reference to steal thunder from people so they couldn’t attack me for it first. It ate a lot of shit for a long time and was the perfect example of a sophomore slump.” Undeterred, the writer/director moved forward with his career, releasing the award-winning Chasing Amy, religious comedy Dogma and Hollywood send-up Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back between 1997 and 2001 while Mallrats slowly but surely found its audience. “Our salvation was home video but it wasn’t until the early ’00s that it started getting a different reputation. If you were a kid that liked comic books or could quote movie dialogue – that movie spoke directly to you. It was like a mirror held up to your life,” suggests Smith. “I’m talking people for whom Star Wars wasn’t just a bunch of movies that came out years ago – it was something they still discussed.”
For Smith, the film’s rollercoaster journey recalls some wise words shared by Jacks back in 1995, the same figure who helped set the film in motion and reassured him during his darkest hour that Mallrats wasn’t done following its poor opening and that its time would come. “Ten years after the movie came out, the conversation flipped entirely,” he remembers. “The movie that nearly killed my very new career went from being a deficit or red-headed step-child to the movie people would come up to me most to speak about. It became something I could wear as a badge of honour and as the Marvelisation of our world moved foward, that movie aged incredibly fucking well. It’s beloved now.” Smith pauses, smiles. “Jim couldn’t have been more prophetic – we weren’t wrong, we were just early.”
'That movie aged incredibly well. it's beloved now' kevin smith