As Kevin Smith originally laid it out, CLERKS 3 would have been the next film he would shoot, followed by HIT SOMEBODY and MOOSE JAWS. MALLRATS 2 came out of nowhere and was looking at principal photography some time in 2016. As you may have noticed, Smith has been assembling the original cast like no other and this snowball effect pushed the production of MALLRATS 2 into 2015. Now it looks as if MALLRATS 2 will be the very next film Smith will shoot, cutting in front of CLERKS 3. Kevin Smith dished out some details on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast with Ralph Garman, but I’ve included the excerpt for you below, including whether or not he’s seeking out the almighty Ben ‘Batman’ Affleck.

Kevin Smith on the progress of MALLRATS 2:

It’s been fun. It’s a real, like Blues Brothers ‘We’re putting the band back together, on a mission from SMod’. So this week, we had a lot of activity behind the scenes as well and it looks like we might — it’s Mallrats and so we require a big old empty mall, and it would be nice if we could do things to the mall. So if you had a mall and the mall was eventually going away, that would let you like blow the f*cking mall up, which happens in the third act. So we found a place that we can go to and in order to get to that mall before it goes away, we were talking about initially shooting Clerks 3 this summer and then we were going to get to Mallrats in the beginning of 2016. Then it jumped into 2015, where it looked like we were gonna shoot Clerks and then hopefully Mallrats before the end of the year. But now, based on finding a f*cking mall that we all dig that will be going away, the priority has become Mallrats. So the next f*cking movie I’m making is Mallrats 2.

On whether or not Ben Affleck will return:

No word on Bat-fleck yet! It’ll be fun to see if we can get him.

While there’s no question CLERKS 3 is more of a priority to me than MALLRATS 2, I suppose you have to strike while the iron is hot. Well, as hot as it will ever be for a film like MALLRATS 2. Speaking of, the cast seems to be growing exponentially as 3 more have been added, with a reported 4 more to go. At this point, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that he’s aiming to bring everyone back. Below you’ll find the announcement pictures, featuring his childhood friends Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson, as well as uber-producer Scott Mosier, who generally plays a bit part in every Smith film he produces.

As for the final 4? Claire Forlani and Affleck are a given, although the other two I’m going to go ahead and guess are slotted for Priscilla Barnes and Brian O’Halloran (as Dante’s brother, Gill Hicks). Then again, we’re not really missing many at this point so guessing is probably moot. Kevin Smith has been (arguably) out of the loop for some time now, but his recent writing/directing choices have me fascinated. As fan as MALLRATS is, I suppose he can’t do any worse with a sequel to his sophomore slump. As Smith himself once put it, “In Hollywood, you fail upwards.” As long as Smith is happy, the man can keep failing to the top.

MALLRATS 2 will shoot sometime in 2015.

Via JoBlo