AD Hartley

Whether we like it or not, beloved movies from the 80s are going to be pillaged for illconceived sequels and reboots for the forseeable future. Always seen as an easy way to make cash and get the fans on side. Like shooting fish in a barrel! But things are never that simple. Shooting Fish #1: Gremlins 3 Part 1. The Background. Gremlins should have been a throwaway film. A forgettable piece of B-Movie genre cinema from an age when the screens were full of such movies. But much like the Gremlins themselves, who morphed into every movie stereotype the producers could think of during the famous scene at Dorry’s Tavern, the movie refused to be just one thing. It was a creature feature, a horror, a christmas film, a satirical comedy and a deliciously dark kid’s movie from the decade that defined what a kid’s movie could be and decided it didn’t have to be just Disney. And to people of a certain age, (ahem…. hi) it’s more than that. A cultural phenomenon with dialogue and lore still qu...

Part 2: The pitfalls In 2025 Warner Bros. announced that Gremlins 3 had been greenlit and they were moving forward with a new writing team alongside Spielberg returning as Producer and original writer, Chris Columbus, moving to the Director’s seat. Fans were immediately concerned at Joe Dante’s absence from the production team fearing it wouldn’t work without him, with some suggesting he’d been snubbed. But I think Joe said everything he wanted to say about Gremlins as an ongoing franchise in the 2 nd film. I see it more of a respectful understanding that Joe’s relationship with The Gremlins ended exactly how he wanted it to. Either way, when the original writer and producer; the guys behind Harry Potter , Home Alone , E.T., Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones , are the ones pulling the strings, you can hardly say the film is in trouble from the off. Yet, the very fact it’s taken 30+ years to get to this stage suggests the sailing may not be smooth even now things are moving for...

Part 3: The Story So how would I write Gremlins 3? Well, with the full first movie nostalgia route already plotted in, it has to start with Gizmo and with Billy. Let’s assume that Zack Galligan returns to the part, which also sets our “when”. This will have to be a modern day set movie with Billy in his late fifties or early sixties. And although it has never been expressively stated, there are enough canonical hints about the longevity of Mogwai in other media, the Gremlins novelisation mainly, that we can assume Gizmo is still around too, essentially unchanged by age. Having made a name for himself in New York, Billy has retired back to Kingston Falls, the town seemingly untouched by the passage of time, much the same as it was in the 1980s (and, indeed, the 50s if you’re a Back To The Future fan). With Phoebe Cates now retired, it seems fitting to have her character have died in New York at some point before Billy retires, so he is essentially returning to Kingston Falls a...