Kevin Smith Explains Why He Will Include Coronavirus Pandemic Into Mallrats Sequel

On a recent episode of FatMan Beyond Live, writer and director Kevin Smith spoke about how he was working the ongoing coronavirus pandemic into the script for Twilight of the Mallrats.

The subject came up as he and co-host Marc Bernardin discussed the impact that coronavirus is having on the entertainment industry. He noted how the severity of the outbreak would be affecting story telling for some time:

The inspiration for adding the pandemic into the movie came as the director was reading up on how the virus was affecting retail businesses due to lack of foot traffic.

Smith detailed, “It’s so weird. I was writing today and I was working on Twilight of the Mallrats, the Mallrats 2 script and so I had just read last night articles about the retail apocalypse where 2020 was going to be the death knell for a bunch of stores anyway.”

He added, “But the pandemic has escalated that, made it worse, and we’re about to see a lot of big box stores, big name stores that you and I have known for most of our lives just go away forever.”

Smith continued, “That means massive vacancies in malls. So they’re predicting the entire implosion of malls. They were already teetering, but an entire implosion of malls across America.”

He then made the connection to Mallrats, “So, as a guy who’s writing a movie set in a mall I’m like ‘well, that’s useful information!’ for my line of work.”

Smith went on to reveal why he decided to include the pandemic into the film, “So I had to start writing the pandemic into the movie because clearly this is going to be remembered for all time.”

“It’s not like ‘oh, why would you make, that’s so topical, the coronavirus happened last year.’ You’ll still be hearing corona-related stories and plotlines and drops for the next five to ten years the same way post-September 11th that was everywhere,” he continued.

This is a rather bold move. While Smith is correct that there was plenty of entertainment in both film and on TV and still are that reference the events of 9-11, many of them were forgettable.

I’d argue most of them were bland. And if you go back and look at some of those films and TV shows now the commercialization of the terrorist attack is cringeworthy.

If that’s the route the Mallrats sequel is heading then it doesn’t spell a positive note for what fans could expect from the film. What do you think of adding corona into Twilight of the Mallrats?

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