Kevin Smith Is Ready To Bring ‘Mallrats’ And ‘Buckaroo Banzai’ To The TV Screen
Director Kevin Smith is ready to bring scenes from the mall and an offbeat eighth dimension to the small screen, although not necessarily in one sitting. Smith confirmed on Friday, June 10, that his Mallrats sequel is being changed from a movie plot into a TV series.
It’s been confirmed by Entertainment Weekly that the Clerks director decided to reconfigure the Mallrats 2 film into a 10-episode television series. Smith originally tried to secure funds and a license for the sequel from Universal, but the process was taking too long for Smith’s liking.
“We started reconfiguring the idea of doing Mallrats not as a film but as a series, and Universal and I are just about to close our deal to do Mallrats the series. So, instead of doing a Mallrats movie, I’m going to do 10 episodes of a Mallrats series.”
Last year, Smith made an announcement that he was going to do a sequel to the 1995 film Mallrats, 20 years after the original debuted in theaters. The Yoga Hosers director had a script written out and tentatively titled the sequel Mallbrats, but ran into trouble with Universal when they refused to allow Smith to use the Mallrats title.
“Well, apparently Universal has never let a catalogue title go, any title they own, they’ve retained. They’ve never done something where they’re like, ‘Oh, you can take it back and go make a sequel.’ Never in the history of the studio.”
It was back to the drawing board for Kevin Smith to negotiate with Universal on how to proceed with the next step for Mallrats 2. Instead of making a big screen movie sequel, Smith is going ahead with the television series, although it hasn’t been announced yet on what channel the Mallrats series will air.
The Mallrats series is just another step into the television format for filmmaker Smith. In May 2016, he told EW that MGM approached him to help shape the sci-fi cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension into a TV series.
As of Friday, Smith tweeted that he and MGMtv pitched the Buckaroo Banzai series that resulted in three serious suitors interested in developing the project. The director could hardly contain his excitement in the tweet as he announced to fans that the series will definitely come to TV.
MGMtv & I pitched #BuckarooBanzai yesterday. The result? 3 serious suitors! So looks like WE'RE GONNA BE MAKING THE SHOW! AHHHH! #TeamBanzai
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) June 10, 2016
The 1984 flick, which starred Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, Ellen Barkin, and John Lithgow, is one of Smith’s favorite movies, so he had no problem agreeing to try to bring Dr. Buckaroo Banzai and his crew alive to an old and new audience.
MGM offered the Buckaroo Banzai opportunity to Smith after the lifelong comic book fan received a lot of positive praise for directing an episode of The Flash. The second season episode titled “The Runaway Dinosaur” is one of Smith’s favorite directing projects to date.
Kevin Smith even credited The CW network and The Flash for his journey into television series.
Thanks to @CW_TheFlash, I've started setting up shop in scripted TV! First up: #BuckarooBanzai. Next up, #Mallrats! https://t.co/G4Nc4GqcXl
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) June 10, 2016
MGMtv wants to develop the Buckaroo Banzai series in hopes that today’s audience will embrace the potential franchise the way that people and critics became fans of the Fargo TV series that airs on the FX network. Smith is excited to be a part of the project, since the 1984 version is one of his favorite movies to watch, and he claims the film has inspired many weird moments that came out of Smith’s movies.
Smith has a strong vision on how he would like to see the Buckaroo Banzai series come to life.
“Basically, you just do the entire movie for season 1, and then season 2 you finally do the sequel we’ve all dreamed about, Buckaroo Banzai Versus the World Crime League.”
At the end of the first film’s credits, the movie’s sequel title was displayed, but a second film never materialized, mostly likely due to the film’s low box office results.
[Photo by Sarah Keayes/Getty Images]