The star of the first two Gremlins films thinks the success of the upcoming animated series could lead to a third film finally being made.
Original Gremlins star Zach Galligan wants a third film to happen, and he spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how he thinks it might come about. "They are doing a 10-part animated series called Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai for HBO Max coming out later this year. You just simply have to look at the nature of the way large entertainment corporations deal with franchises and properties over the years and decades," Galligan said. "It's not difficult to make an educated guess that the cartoon is a way of seeding the younger generation that's not aware of it. If it is successful, if it gets like Mandalorian-big, then I think Gremlins 3 is inevitable."
If a third movie does arrive, Galligan feels confident that the process will be even easier than it was 40 years ago, even if puppets are still used. "If Warner Bros. decided to do Gremlins 3 my feeling was that it would be exponentially easier this time around than it was the first time," Galligan said. "The first time, if there was a wire or a cable or something [showing] you had to scrap the entire take. Now, if you got a great take with a wire or a cable you just CGI it out. So, my guess is, it would be five to ten times easier to do it than we did in '83."
Though Warner Bros. could go the CGI route, it seems like the charm of the puppets would be part of the appeal in revisiting the franchise. For his part, original writer Chris Columbus feels puppetry is the only way to go.
“I would love to do it," Columbus said last year when asked about the possibility of a third movie. "I wrote a script, so there is an existing script. We’re working out some rights issues right now, so we’re just trying to figure out when the best time to make that film would be. I would still do it the same way – I would do it as tangible puppets, not CGI. Maybe having — you know we had one stop-motion scene in the first Gremlins, but I don’t think I’d use much CGI."
Written and executive produced by Tse Chun, and produced by Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Sam Register and Brendan Hay, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai stars Ming-Na Wen, BD Wong, James Hong, Matthew Rhys, Izaac Wang, A.J. LoCascio and Gabrielle Green. The series will premiere on HBO Max in 2021.
Source: Entertainment Weekly