‘Mallrats’ creator stops by EP Center mall

“Mallrats” writer-director Kevin Smith visited his old stomping grounds in Eden Prairie on Friday morning. 

Smith posted two photos to his Twitter account of him standing in front of the Kohl’s exterior building wall and nearby loading dock at Eden Prairie Center mall. Both were used during a chase scene in the 1995 movie he filmed there.

“I’m in Minnesota to speak at VeeCon today, so I rolled down to Eden Prairie Center to revisit the scenes of the crime: the loading dock where Silent Bob had all those wonderful toys and the wall where Jay & Silent Bob lapped Team LaFours!” Smith wrote on Twitter. “We filmed MALLRATS here 27 years ago, Kids!”

Smith said Friday that he stops by the mall whenever he comes to town.

“Only those two exteriors have looked the same for 27 years (at the mall),” he said. “Bittersweet.”

In an EPLN story earlier this week, Smith said Eden Prairie Center represented a doorway to his future back when it served as the set for “Mallrats.”

For a “mere” $10,000 location fee, Smith said he had his own mall to play with at 24. It was his first studio movie. He had a budget of $5 million, a cast and a crew numbering 50 to 60 people.

VeeCon, which takes place May 19-22 at U.S. Bank Stadium, bills itself as “a first of its kind Web3 conference built around NFTs (non-fungible tokens), pop culture, entrepreneurship, marketing, and innovation. 

Smith is one of many notable people speaking at the conference. Others include Deepak Chopra, Snoop Dogg and Logan Paul.