Gremlins 3 has been one of those long-in-development deals, running in place alongside The Goonies 2, The Matrix 4 and a host of others. There have bene varying reports that there are ideas for a third story in the Gremlins saga, and now -- with the calendar turning from 2017 to 2018 -- an original star is starting to beat that drum once again:
Zach Galligan played the kind-hearted suburban kid Billy Peltzer in 1984's Gremlins and its oddball sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Though he has worked consistently as an actor and TV director since then, his heart remains with the Mogwai, as his above Tweet proves. At the time of this publication, the Tweet has 335 RTs. So some Children of the '80s are interested. Just... not a ton.
What is the latest on Gremlins 3? There have been all sorts of reports over the years, though Zach Galligan has the latest from original screenwriter Chris Columbus at the top of his Twitter feed. It's a link to a Slashfilm interview, where Columbus notes that he has a treatment that is macabre and twisted but in line with the original film. He elaborated, at the time:
I'm really proud of the script. It is as twisted and dark as anything, so we'll see. It's always a budgetary conversation when we're going to shoot it. I wanted to go back to the really twisted sensibility of the first movie. I found that was a very easy place for me to fall back into and start writing again so hopefully we'll see that movie soon.
I like that he mentions the budgetary concern, because in his Tweet, Zach Galligan emphasizes that there will be minimum CGI in any sequel. The Gremlins in Gremlins were masterful puppets, and turning them into CGI creatures would be a disappointing turn of events. We need less of the Star Wars prequels, and more of this movie magic:
What are the odds that Gremlins 3 graduates from social media pipe dream to full-blown production? I'd put it at 50/50. We're a nostalgia-fueled industry, and Gremlins is one of those concepts that stuck around -- hard -- for decades after it first entered the pop-culture landscape. Ghostbusters, which was released around the same time, got its reboot. And the idea of the Gremlins is timeless, and can be reworked and revived in numerous different ways.
So if a studio wants to roll the dice on an inexpensive sequel that's decades in the making, I'd say sprinkle some water on the original film, watch it reproduce, then hide those snacks when the clock starts to approach midnight.
