Mallrats

Mallrats was Kevin Smith's second film and his first with studio money. After Clerks, producer James Jacks approached Smith and his producing partner Scott Mosier about making a picture for Universal, and Smith wrote a mall comedy: college students T.S. Quint and Brodie Bruce are dumped by their girlfriends on the same day and retreat to the local mall, where T.S.'s ex is about to appear on her father's dating show, Truth or Date. Jay and Silent Bob, back from Clerks, are recruited to destroy the show's stage. Their friend Willam spends the film trying to see the sailboat in a Magic Eye poster, and Stan Lee turns up to give Brodie advice about love.

The cast was a mix of the known and the not yet. Shannen Doherty of Beverly Hills, 90210 was the biggest name; Jason Lee, a professional skateboarder with no acting experience, played Brodie; a little-known Ben Affleck played the clothing-store manager Shannon Hamilton. Universal did not want Jason Mewes as Jay, the character based on him, and made him audition against Seth Green and Breckin Meyer. Smith wanted to shoot at a mall in Ocean Township, New Jersey, but the production landed at Eden Prairie Center in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, which was running at half capacity because the Mall of America had opened a few miles away; the mall rented for $10,000 for a few winter months.

Gramercy released it on October 20, 1995, and it grossed about $2.1 million against a $6.1 million budget. Critics measured it against Clerks and found it wanting: Roger Ebert gave it a star and a half, and Gene Siskel said he sat stonefaced through it without laughing once. Then the video happened. The VHS came in 1996, the DVD in 1999 with a commentary from Smith, Affleck, Lee and Mewes, and a 2005 tenth-anniversary disc restored more than thirty minutes of cut scenes. Smith spent years from 2015 announcing a sequel, and the mall still has a framed Mallrats poster inside its Potbelly sandwich shop.