I don’t have the patience to read through an entire interview with Gremlins director Joe Dante (It’s been downhill since Innerspace), but luckily Clint over at Moviehole do, does, or did. He sat down with the guys at Latino Review to discuss his upcoming Masters of Horror project, and while he was there they brought up the subject of Gremlins 3. Apparently there have been rumors.
Strangely enough, Dante says there may be one. Actually, he’s a little more certain than that. “Well, I’m sure there will be one,” he says. I guess he’s noticed Hollywood’s remake trend too. They’ve used up the seventies and now they’re dipping into the 80s. Gremlins can’t be too far off can it?
Unfortunately, he says he won’t have anything to do with it. “They won’t ask me,” Dante says. Apparently he thinks part of the reason it hasn’t been done already is that he went out of his way to make a third installment impossible, by shutting down their options with Gremlins 2. He blames technology. “I think what’s holding it up is that they can’t conceive of what to do because the first movies were defined by the technology, it was what the puppets could do and do well and not do and that’s what the movies became. Now you could do anything with CGI so the field is so open that nobody could focus on what exactly it should be.”
Actually the guy seems a little bitter doesn’t he? There’s not even a movie happening, and he’s already down on the nonexistent people doing it. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing it,” he grumbles.
He does have a point about computer animation though. Little monster puppets were a cool novelty back when he did it. Now, it’s hard to imagine modern audiences being excited to see something like it. Computer animation has made the impossible possible, and gimmicks like the Gremlins are now kind of passé.
