Joe Dante Talks Potential Gremlins Remake; Says He Hasn’t Been Approached
Though it’s been one of those on again, off again projects for many years now, it seems that a remake of Gremlins is not just inevitable but also currently in the works. And according to Joe Dante, who of course directed the original, he hasn’t even been approached about the project.
In an exclusive interview with Arrow in the Head, Dante spoke about the possibility of a Gremlins remake in the near future, and he seems to be very torn on whether or not it’s the sort of remake that even needs to happen. We’re right there with ya, sir.
“It’s not that I’ve washed my hands of it, it’s that no one has asked me to be involved with it; they want to do it themselves,” noted Dante. “Fine, maybe this will be the time the rumors turn out to be true. Or not. As you know, this has been going on for years now. There’s always a story that somebody has been asked to write or direct it; then something happens and they don’t do it. I don’t know if you have to take this with a grain of salt every time you hear about it.”
“It’s a complicated project, carved of the expectations of how much is it going to be like the original?” Dante continued. “And the fact that the technology has completely changed; the first two movies were entirely dictated by the technology. The reason those movies are what they are is because of what we were able to do or not do. And now you can do anything, anything you can imagine.”
“The question is, why? Why do we want to make another one of these? And if we do, how is it going to be different from the first? If it’s so different, the people who liked the originals aren’t going to embrace it; you don’t want to do that. But on the other hand, the technology is really outdated now. Are they going to look the same, are they not going to look the same? Do they have the same properties? There’s a lot of stuff attached to that franchise, and I think juggling it again is going to be a challenge.”
Related Story: Gremlins Reboot Not Quite a Remake of Original Film?
Dante also spoke about Gremlins 2, which he directed, indicating that the entire film was more or less a statement about the relative pointlessness of even making a sequel to Gremlins.
“When I was asked to do the sequel, which I originally turned down because it was so hard to make the first one… The only reason I decided to make the sequel was because years later they had tried to make a sequel and couldn’t figure out how to do it, and they really wanted another one,” Dante told the site. “So they said to me, ‘If you give us a couple of cans of film with gremlins in them next summer, you can do whatever you want.’ And they gave me three times the money we had to make the first one. So I made Gremlins 2, which was essentially about how there didn’t need to be a sequel to Gremlins.”
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