Kevin Smith is writing coronavirus into 'Mallrats 2', a sign of things to come in Hollywood?
It's an undeniable fact that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had a major impact on humanity and chances are, we are going to be thinking about this terrible time for years after the pandemic ends. And it looks like filmmaker Kevin Smith is looking to get ahead of the curve by working the pandemic into his script for 'Twilight of the Mallrats', the much-awaited sequel to Smith's 1995 comedy 'Mallrats'.
The pandemic is wreaking havoc on the retail industry, along with most other industries. So it makes sense that it would make its way into 'Mallrats 2'. But what's really interesting is that this could just be the first signs of a post-pandemic Hollywood, one that'll come out of this situation deeply changed by the experience.
"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 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 said during a recent broadcast of 'Fatman Beyond'.
"That means massive vacancies in malls so they're predicting the entire implosion of malls," he continued. "They were already teetering, but an entire implosion of malls across America. 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 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 will still be hearing corona-related stories and plotlines and drops for the next five to 10 years, the same way post-September 11th that was everywhere."
While Smith seems to be focused on how the pandemic will affect his own subject matter, his observations do hold true for a lot of different things that we have gotten used to seeing on our screens. Would shows like 'The Walking Dead' still be as interesting in a world that's already gone through its own outbreak? Could this lead to more stories about deadly viruses the way 9/11 caused an uptick in stories about terror attacks? Only time will tell.