Kevin Smith Reveals How Shannen Doherty Got ‘Mallrats’ Made

Shannen Doherty tragically passed away over the weekend, at the way-too-young age of 53. Doherty was obviously an absolute icon of the 1990s, mostly due to her work as Brenda Walsh on the long-running primetime teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210. Although the less said about the time the show forced her to protest the Vietnam War in 1960s cosplay, the better.

In addition to 90210, those of us who grew up in the ‘90s also knew Doherty as the co-star of Kevin Smith’s notorious flop Mallrats. But without her participation, the film may never have gotten made at all.

Following Doherty’s passing, Smith penned a lengthy Instagram post in tribute to the actress, who he noted was a “true talent” and “single handedly shattered it in the early ‘90s.” Smith also revealed that, prior to his Clerks success, he would routinely watch 90210 each week specifically for Doherty, aka “the girl from Heathers.”

When it came time to make Mallrats, which he pitched as “Clerks in a mall,” a friend suggested casting Doherty, owing to the fact that she’s “an American icon!” Smith  also pointed out that, once Doherty was onboard, she was “the only reason Mallrats got greenlit in 1995” because “Shannen was one of the most famous people on the planet — and the fact that she picked Mallrats as her first follow-up to 90210 made that movie happen.”

Despite the fact that her character Rene, Brody’s ex-girlfriend, wasn’t exactly the focal point of Mallrats, Doherty’s involvement, coming just a year after she left Beverly Hills, 90210, was clearly a huge selling point of the movie, hence the reason why her face was so prominent on the VHS box art. 

And Smith just couldn’t help but insert a meta-90210 joke into the movie, which wasn’t in the script.

Unfortunately, Mallrats wasn’t exactly a box-office success, both launching and derailing Doherty’s movie stardom. As the actress revealed to Smith on her podcast Let’s Be Clear, she didn’t even want to audition for the comedy at first, but was forced to by the same representatives who later claimed that “Mallrats killed your film career.”
When going through her filmography Smith remarked, “God, I did kill your movie career… Goddammit.”

Clearly, Doherty didn’t blame Smith for the film’s failure, as she later agreed to cameo as herself in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, acting in a Scream movie opposite a knife-wielding monkey. 

And Mallrats accrued a substantive cult following over the years, so much so that Smith has written a sequel. During their podcast chat, recorded earlier this year, Doherty and Smith discussed potentially re-teaming for Twilight of the Mallrats, and even performed a scene from the unproduced script, urging studios like Netflix to scoop up the project.

Sadly, that version of the movie will never be made, meaning that we’ll never get to see what happened to Brody and Rene after they became co-hosts of The Tonight Show. 

Like, did they screw over Conan, too? 

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