Kevin Smith Wants Sarah Michelle Gellar in Mall Rats 2

The 4:30 Movie writer-director Kevin Smith is well aware that filmmakers are in a self-reflective phase, especially after the wake-up call that was the recent global pandemic. In the last few years alone, Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) and James Gray (Armageddon Time) have made period dramas based on their childhoods, but most notably, Steven Spielberg put out The Fabelmans in 2022, detailing how his family’s divorce intersected with his budding filmmaking prowess. Smith’s 16th feature about his four first loves — his neighborhood movie theater, his adolescent crush and his two best friends — is already being compared to Spielberg’s most recent Oscar-nominated film.

“A lot of nice people online have been saying that [The 4:30 Movie] is kinda like The Fabelmans, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s sweet.’ And then The New York Times was like, ‘Yeah, it’s kind of like The Fabelmans if the kid grows up to make terrible movies,’” Smith tells The Hollywood Reporter with a laugh.

But instead of following Spielberg, Branagh and Gray, as well as Alfonso Caurón’s Roma (2018) and Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2022), Smith’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale was actually born out of his 2022 purchase and preservation of Atlantic Cinemas, his pandemic-endangered childhood movie house in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Now known as SModcastle Cinemas, Smith knew he could give himself a screaming deal on a filming location, so he decided to tell the 1986-set story of how 16-year-old Brian David (Austin Zajur) found magic, heartbreak and love in a place like Atlantic Cinemas. (Smith’s parents nearly named him Brian David Smith until they noticed another baby with the Brian David moniker in their hospital’s newborn nursery.)

Initially, Smith planned to have his daughter Harley Quinn Smith play the Brian David role since their family’s matriarch, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, considers Harley to be a chip off her father’s block. However, Harley, who previously starred in her dad’s films Yoga Hosers (2016) and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), declined the offer. 

“She was just like, ‘You don’t think I’ve got enough nepo baby shit to deal with online? You now want me to play you? Fuck that,’” Smith recalls.

The 54-year-old filmmaker didn’t have to look very far for Harley’s replacement, as her boyfriend of five years, Zajur, had already worked with the Smith family on Clerks III (2022) and the TBS reality show, Celebrity Show-Off (2020).

“Honestly, [Austin Zajur] was more Kevin Smith than Kevin Smith. He was the perfect, perfect choice,” Smith says.

For years and years, Smith has been trying to make a sequel to his cult-favorite sophomore feature, Mallrats (1995), which starred Jason Lee, Shannen Doherty and Jeremy London. But given Doherty’s passing in July after a long battle with cancer, he briefly jettisoned the idea since she was committed to reprising her role as one of the pic’s co-leads. 

However, he’s now realized that Twilight of the Mallrats (Mallrats 2) should function as a tribute to Doherty. And instead of rewriting the film to exclude her character of Rene Mosier, he now has a dream surrogate casting in mind involving an actor who was not only one of Doherty’s best friends, but also someone who originally auditioned for another role in Mallrats nearly three decades ago.

“Shannen’s closest friend was Sarah Michelle Gellar, and I worked with Sarah on Masters of the Universe: Revelation,” Smith says. “So her being Shannen’s bestie and having already tried out for Mallrats 30 years ago next year, I would ask Sarah to step in for Shannen if there’s a possibility that we get to make Twilight of the Mallrats. I think that’d be personally meaningful for her on some level because of her relationship with Shannen … She’d bring Shannen’s warmth with her, and it’s maybe the next best thing to having Shannen there.”

Smith also shared his and Doherty’s final text exchange after taping her Let’s Be Clear podcast in Malibu last December. Their final back-and-forth shows how eager she was to convince Mallrats rights-holder Universal to clear the way for a long-awaited sequel.

“She said, ‘Why don’t you and Jason [Lee] and me go meet at Universal?’ And I said, ‘We totally can.’ And she said, ‘Let’s do it. I’ll pull the cancer card.’ And then she put one of those crying-laughing emojis,” an emotional Smith recites from his iPhone’s Messages app.

Smith adds: “Over the last month, there’s been these weird glimmers of conversations and hope. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but it suddenly seems like there could be a path to victory, so to speak. And we know who that movie is going to be dedicated to; that’s for damn sure.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Smith also discusses The 4:30 Movie’s losing effort in securing a PG-13 rating, before expanding on why Universal has yet to pave the way for a Mallrats sequel.

Well, Kevin, every time I talk to you, you tell me how you were almost named Brian David, and when I heard Austin Zajur’s character’s name, I pointed at the screen like Leo DiCaprio. 

(Smith laughs and points at the screen.) 

So, for the uninitiated, Austin is clearly playing an alternative universe version of you, right?

Very much so. Originally, before Austin, the person I reached out to was my daughter Harley [Quinn Smith]. I wanted her to play a young Brian David, because my wife is always like, “Harley is just a beardless, dickless version of you.” So I was like, “Ooh, she could play young, beardless and, yes, dickless me as a 16-year-old,” but she passed. She was just like, “You don’t think I’ve got enough nepo baby shit to deal with online? You now want me to play you? Fuck that.” So I was like, “You know what? There’s somebody you’re sleeping with who will be just as good, if not better.” I’ve known Austin for five years because Harley and him have been dating for that long. He was in Clerks III with us, and we also did this TBS contest show during the pandemic called Celebrity Show-Off, in which we made a fake sitcom called Son-in-Lockdown and he played an obnoxious version of himself.

So I knew what he was capable of, comedically, but after hanging out with him and knowing him as a person all this time, I was like, “I bet he could pull this off, man. He’s got a lot of soul, this kid.” And, honestly, he was more Kevin Smith than Kevin Smith. He took me on a journey. He did something for me that I didn’t even ask for, but I absolutely adore. In his final scene where [Brian David] is confessing his love for Melody Barnegat [Siena Agudong], he glasses up and almost cries, and I was like, “Bro, I never would’ve thought to ask for that, not because I don’t think you’re capable of it. It would’ve been too self-serving, but that is the essence of Kevin Smith. You could stand like him, maybe say things like him, but what you just did there communicates everything.” It really sold the moment, and that’s the moment we went out on, so I can’t thank him enough. He was the perfect, perfect choice. 

Now I’m sure it’s adversely affecting my daughter’s sex life. (Laughs.) Why would you want to sleep with a fucking guy who played a young version of your dad? I’m sure that’s going to play with her mind and she’ll be dealing with that in therapy forever, but my movie is all the better for it. 

What was Harley’s initial reaction to her beloved being cast to play an alt-version of her father? 

She went for it, big time. Number one, I think she was relieved that I was off of her. I was just like, “It’s not going to be you anymore,” and she was like, “Thank Christ.” She never likes to let me down, but she was ready to let me down. But the fact that I chose her favorite actor won her over, naturally. She loves me, of course, but I think she loves the movie more because she loves the lead. She’s like, “Oh my God, that’s my Puff.” That’s what she calls him. So she was happy, and so far, there’s been no real blowback or, “I’m not talking to you for years, Dad.”

Similar to Cinema Paradiso and Clerks III, The Fabelmans comparison has been made a lot thus far. 

A lot of nice people online have been saying that it’s kinda like The Fabelmans, and I was like, “Oh, that’s sweet.” And then The New York Times was like, “Yeah, it’s kind of like The Fabelmans if the kid grows up to make terrible movies.” (Laughs.)

But a lot of filmmakers have been making semi-autobiographical works of late. So was The Fabelmans the one that actually got the ball rolling for you?

No, if I have to credit any filmmaker, it’s Paul Thomas Anderson. A couple years ago, I saw Licorice Pizza, and I was like, “I see what you’re doing, man. How awesome. You’re telling your secret origin story. That’s neat. What a cool idea.” So I stole that idea, and later on, when we bought this movie theater [in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey], that’s what prompted the whole flick. We had this location, and I was like, “Well, shit, we’ve got a place to make a movie. If we own a movie theater, we own a location to shoot a movie. Granted, it’s going to be a movie about sitting in a movie theater, but it’s just cheap enough and right up Kevin Smith’s alley, man.” So it came from buying my childhood theater, or maybe it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Part of the reason I wanted to buy the theater was like, “Well, we can make a movie here, as well. I’ll get a free location out of it.” So, as much as I love The Fabelmans and whatnot, it was mostly that. Like everyone, I love that last scene when he meets David Lynch as John Ford, but that didn’t really come into play. In fact, I think I’d already written a draft of ours before that had happened. So it really exists because me and my friends bought a movie theater [that is now known as SModcastle Cinemas]. It was a byproduct of keeping that theater alive [following the Covid shutdown]. 

Now that Clerks II and The 4:30 Movie’s Rosario Dawson is the star of Ahsoka, I wondered if you’d avoid another Clerks II situation where one of your characters goes off on Star Wars. And so I got a big laugh when Adam Pally’s usher character railed against Star Wars TV shows, especially when Adam was on The Mandalorian’s season one finale. Did Rosario give you a hard time about this after she read that scene in the script? 

(Laughs.) Not at all. Well, to be fair, in the [1986-set] script, [Pally’s] usher was like, “Thank God there will never be another Star Wars movie.” But Adam being Adam, when you roll the camera and say, “Have fun, Adam. Do what you want,” he then gave me all that other stuff: “Like we’re going to want to watch a show about Boba Fett!” and shit like that. And as he was doing it, I was like, “Cha-ching!” That was right up my alley. So Rosario wasn’t aware of that stuff from the script, and she hasn’t texted me about it yet. (Laughs.)

The irony of all this is that you helped inspire a story point on the best Star Wars TV show, Andor. Tony Gilroy referenced your Death Star-related scene in Clerks as partial inspiration for the prisoners who are building components for the Death Star on Andor.

He is very sweet for ever saying something like that publicly, but let’s be honest, Tony Gilroy needs no help, man. He’s a master screenwriter and filmmaker, and when he shouted me out as Andor was running, it was honestly kind of dope. I’ve spent my whole career shouting out Star Wars and then Star Wars shouted back. That’s where I am now at this stage in life. 30 years into my career, I’ve spent a long time calling out and shouting out other movies in my movies, and now the movies are starting to call back. If you live long enough, that’s a possibility. Nobody told me that in the beginning of my career, but I’m so happy to discover that it’s such a sweet byproduct, man. 

Similar to Robert Rodriguez and Machete in 2010, Eli Roth recently turned his fictitious Thanksgiving trailer from Robert and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse into an actual feature called Thanksgiving. The 4:30 Movie also has its own fake trailers, so would you have any interest in making a Sister Sugar Walls feature someday?

Let me tell you, if anybody wants to put any money into Sister Sugar Walls, I’d be more than happy to make that picture. Could you imagine? “From the maker of Dogma and Red State, a new look at religion — Sister Sugar Walls.” Of all our little trailers, that would be the one that I would definitely love to take a shot at if anybody wanted to finance it. But unlike Robert with Machete and Eli with Thanksgiving, I can’t imagine there’s going to be much of a high demand for Sister Sugar Walls. 

Having quoted your “framing business” line from Mallrats in my senior yearbook …. 

That still makes me happy. That’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, but it’s a “way homer.” Nobody ever comes up to me and goes, “That framing line,” so that makes me so happy.

Thus, I was obviously gutted over Shannen Doherty’s recent passing. Of course, her death is far bigger than any one movie, but my mind did eventually wander to Twilight of the Mallrats, which she apparently wanted to do. Are you more motivated than ever to try and get it made as a tribute to her? 

What a great call, man. My first feeling after Shannen passed was like, “Well, that’s it.” Her character, Rene, didn’t just pop up in the movie; she’s a big feature. Brodie [Jason Lee] and Rene are main characters in the movie. So when Shannen passed, it felt like, “All right, well the movie will never happen and probably for the best.” But then, ironically enough, over the last month, there’s been these weird glimmers of conversations and hope. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but it suddenly seems like there could be a path to victory, so to speak. 

So, if Universal was ever like, “Go ahead,” the question, at that point, becomes, “What do you do? Shannen’s closest friend was Sarah Michelle Gellar, and I worked with Sarah on Masters of the Universe: Revelation. Ironically, when Sarah and I first met in person, I talked about her friendship with Shannen because I knew they were real tight. I was like, “When did you meet her?” And she was like, “Well, she was on Charmed and I was on Buffy, so we were in that world. But I have met you before.” And I was like, “When!?” And she said, “During the Mallrats auditions.” And I was like, “You auditioned for Mallrats!?” And she was like, “Yeah, I was a kid. I was up for Trish.” And I was like, “Get out of here!” So her being Shannen’s bestie and having already tried out for Mallrats 30 years ago next year, I would ask Sarah to step in for Shannen if there’s a possibility that we get to make Twilight of the Mallrats. I think that’d be personally meaningful for her on some level because of her relationship with Shannen, and it’d be great for us in the movie, of course. She’d bring Shannen’s warmth with her, and it’s maybe the next best thing to having Shannen there. 

This has to happen now.

I hope so. That would be so fucking wonderful and nuts. The only thing that would be better is if Shannen was still here with us and we did it like we planned. The last time I spoke to her was on her Let’s Be Clear podcast. I went to her house in Malibu to record back in December, and at the end of it, she texted me. Let me find the text real quick because it’s classic Shannen. (Smith pulls out his iPhone.) 

We were talking about going into Universal and sitting down with them to talk about making a Mallrats sequel. And she texted, “We will call out Universal and tell people to message them and Jason Blum,” because I was like, “Maybe Blumhouse will do it.” So I said, “Totally.” And she texted, “So let’s hope it works.” And I said, “Amen, little sister.” And then she said, “Why don’t you and Jason [Lee] and me go meet at Universal?” And I said, “We totally can.” And she said, “Let’s do it. I’ll pull the cancer card.” And then she put one of those crying-laughing emojis. So it’d be nice. Of course, I’d like to make the movie for me and many other reasons, but now there’s a special impetus. And we know who that movie is going to be dedicated to; that’s for damn sure. 

Thank you for sharing that with me. I truly appreciate it. Did Universal drive too hard a bargain in the past? 

No, every time I’ve tried to make a Mallrats sequel with Universal, I’d go in and speak with new executives. They change all the time. I’m like, “Hey kids, I want to make a sequel to Mallrats. Let’s do it.” And they’re like, “We own Mallrats? I had no idea. I love Mallrats.” And I said, “Great! I got more. Here’s two.” And then I tell them the story and they go blank faced. Basically, at the end of my pitch, the expression is always like, “Yeah, but that movie’s neither fast nor furious.” And so it lives there.

I don’t blame anybody at Universal for not seeing the possibilities, but I live in a world where Mallrats is still a viable currency. That movie is still people’s favorite, so I know for a fact that it would have a life and capture people’s imagination. They’d be like, “What!? Again!? How!?” And they’d be into it. So, hopefully, Universal sees it our way one day and they’re like, “Hey, man, go ahead. Let us know how it works out.” I’m not expecting them to write the check or anything like that. But if they can see their way clear to be like, “We’re never going to do anything with it, so if you can make something of this, feel free,” then that would be amazing. 

You had a duel with the MPA over The 4:30 Movie’s R-rating; you intended for it to be PG-13. Have you been able to make peace with their decision? 

I made peace with it on the day. I went in kind of cocky because I’ve flipped my rating many times over the course of my career. Clerks got an NC-17 and we flipped it to R. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, we flipped to an R, all without cuts. Jersey Girl was an R and we flipped it to a PG-13. They originally gave Yoga Hosers an R, and so I said, “I intend to appeal this,” and then they just flipped it to a PG-13 without the appeal. They were like, “We don’t want to go through this shit again.” 

So I was hoping they would do it on this movie, as well. Normally, the argument is like, “Hey, theater owners are the last line of defense and they know what gets people asking for a rebate.” So the appeals audience this time around was not the MPA; it was people who are members of NATO: The National Association of Theater Owners. And I am one now. So I was like, “Kids, I’m a NATO member and I actually work at my movie theater. I’ve sold tickets and been at the desk. So if people walk out, I know what they walk out about. And I’m telling you right now, there’s nothing in this movie that is R-rated country. I aimed for a PG-13. I know how to make an R-rated movie. That and playing foosball are the two things I know how to do in life, so if I wanted to make it R-rated, I would have. If you make this an R, essentially you’re saying that this movie is the exact same as The Human Centipede, which was also R-rated. I rest my case.” But the kids at the MPA were so cool, and there are kids now; they’re all younger than me. Back in the day when I started, they were older people and I was a young whipper snapper. Now I’m the old person, and they’re the young whipper snappers. 

So they were like, “Kevin, we’re with you. We were half on the fence. We didn’t feel it was a hard R, and we didn’t know which way to go. But there were a lot of conversations about masturbation in the movie. I’ve got a 16-year-old kid, and it would be weird to sit next to my kid while they had to listen to these conversations about masturbation.” And I was like, “I’m sure your kid knows what masturbation is.” And they were like, “Yeah, I’m sure they do too.” And then I was like, “Well, which masturbation conversation are we talking about?” And they were like, “Well, let’s list them all, and they listed six.” (Laughs.) And as they laid it out, I was like, “Well, I guess the movie is a little bit dirty. I did get rid of all the cursing, but I guess there is a lot of masturbation talk. It’s a coming-of-age movie and there is a lot of coming in it.” So in the middle of it, I almost wanted to concede and be like, “You know what? You kids are right.” But we took it all the way to the end and I think we lost by one vote. And even then, I wasn’t like, “Goddamn it, let’s go back.” I was like, “I see it their way.”

Well, nonetheless, I thought it was an incredibly sweet movie.

Was it weird to sit there and hear the character’s full name of Brian David the whole movie? 

Yeah, I kept perking up and looking over my shoulder.

We had dogs back in the day named Mulder and Scully, and whenever we used to watch The X-Files, our Mulder would pop his head up at the TV when Scully was like, “Mulder!” I’ve got to imagine that was you the whole movie.

Exactly.

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The 4:30 Movie is now available on digital; the 4K/Blu-ray arrives on Nov. 5.