Shooting Fish #1 - Gremlins 3, The Pitfalls (Part 2)

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 forward. And there a huge number of pitfalls to avoid in order to make Gremlins 3 a success.

The first and main issue will be the one that makes or breaks the movie. The tone.

Normally a multi-movie franchise has a set tone throughout. But the two previous Gremlins movies are miles apart in tone, making it necessary for the production team to choose one (or even pick a third ). The original film was dark for a kid’s film. A creature feature with elements of horror, violence and disturbing imagery. It was slapstick comedy, but it didn’t pull punches with jump scares. Many critics thought it went too far; some called it mean-spirited, some thought it mocked the traditional Christmas movie; a disturbing comic parody of children’s stories… small town charm turned to apocalyptic disaster. Tonally, as an 8-year-old, it was right up my street.

The sequel was different. Loud, brash and bright, taking absolutely nothing seriously, including its own lore. It mocked the very premise of The Gremlins, those who reviewed it, those who produced it and the very notion of franchise movies, all in one loosely plotted collection of comic skits, cameo appearances and 4^th wall breaking chaos. It looked at the conventions of filmmaking and handed them a stick of lit dynamite.

Looking at the very self-aware; very meta tone of Gremlins 2 and its societal commentary, there is a case to be made that Gremlins 3 could lean into that and flourish in the modern social media obsessed, “influencer” plagued, fake news following days we live in. A part of me would even love to see that. But just as Gremlins 2 has it would date very quickly to become a curio of its time rather than a future classic.

On the whole, I’d much prefer to see a return to the original’s dark, eerie tone. Stranger Things and It have shown there is still a fondness for the Spielbergian 80s influenced kids’ horror tone he perfected, and I think they would do well if they followed that path with Gremlins 3.

Reboot or Sequel?

Rebooting an 80s movie is hardly a new idea. But whether it’s a good idea remains to be seen. New versions of Robocop, Footloose and Road House all failed to a greater or lesser degree. Many would say Total Recall did too, although I actually think it’s a good film… if you forget that it’s supposed to be Total Recall.

The Karate Kid managed to get both a reboot and a sequel and then curiously merged them into a meta bending joint universe. Enjoyable by all accounts, but lacking the soul of the original 2 movies.

The Terminator tried to best that by making not one but 3 separate attempts at a combined reboot/sequel hybrid, none of which were exactly great.

Other 80s classics also received very late sequels, cashing in on 80s nostalgia. Tron, Ghostbusters, Aliens, Dune, with only the latter receiving praise beyond that of the original. (OK, and Alien Romulus was pretty good too).

So which direction should Gremlins 3 take? Well, given the evidence above they should probably give up now. But I think they’ll choose the Ghostbusters Afterlife route. The safest option, guaranteeing interest and intrigue from the off at the very least. Create a direct sequel, link the plot to the original, bring back established stars, introduce new younger protagonists to interact with them, throw in way too many nods, winks and points to the original and hope for the best.

Modernisation – the trap they must avoid. There will be a temptation to update the formula for Gen Z and have everyone filming the chaos and uploading it to Tik Tok; influencers talking about the Gremlins on Youtube; podcasters hosting cameo guests to dissect the chaos of the movie… all very meta, all very 2025 and, actually, already done. Yes, it may be 30 years later, but that is essentially the set-up of Gremlins 2, but with Cable TV instead of Social media. It had the talking heads, the camera guy shooting instead of running, the social commentary, the cameos.

The ”Gen Z” version of a new Gremlins movie was already made 35 years ago. The joke will have worn thin by now.  I really hope they don’t follow this path, though I’m certain they will not be able to resist the temptation to have bystanders uploading Gremlins footage at some point because they think that will be hilarious… the word Hashtag will almost certainly be used. 

And now to one of the main issues any new movie will face. CGI – In simple terms, the Gremlins HAVE to be animatronic. Though, with nuance. Both original Gremlins films have CGI effects for some composite shots imposing the practical model gremlins into a scene. A combination of modern SFX and CGI mixed with even better animatronics than were available in 1984, could be amazing. What no one wants to see is a film stacked with fully computer-generated Gremlins, as easy a choice as that would be for the producers.

And finally, the setting. Somewhere new? New York? China Town? Well, I think it can only be Kingston Falls. If they are going to milk the nostalgia, go all in and return home.

UP NEXT. Part 3: Gremlins 3, The Story