Forty years since its release in theaters, original Gremlins star Zach Galligan — who played Billy Peltzer in the 1984 horror comedy — has provided an exciting update for the possible third Gremlins feature.
Though the film spawned a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, six years after its initial release, Warner Bros. has been trying to develop a third film to no avail. But with the arrival of the animated series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, hopes for Gremlins 3 have started to surface once again.
While there is still no news about the third Gremlins installment as of yet, Galligan — in an interview with ScreenRant — stated that Warner Bros. may be planning to bring back the cult classic through the form of a “live-action film.”
“I do. I can’t really figure out why Warner Bros. would do two seasons — not one, but two seasons — of the animated series, and spend a lot of money on it, unless there was some kind of endgame. And usually the endgame for a huge studio like Warner Bros. Discovery is a live-action film,” said Galligan.
He added, “A live-action film is always where you’re going to make the most money. Super Mario Bros. just proved that . . . the endgame probably will be, I’m hoping, a third film. I don’t think it’ll be a reboot, though, because Chris Columbus has nixed that idea. He owns part of the rights.”
This isn’t the first time Gremlins 3 has received an optimistic update. Chris Columbus revealed in 2017 that the script for it has been finished. Of course, that never came to fruition, so unless Gremlins 3 actually reaches production, Galligan’s statement may be just another update.
What is Gremlins about?
Gremlins, directed by Joe Dante, has been dubbed one of the biggest features of the 1980s and was considered a horror comedy classic. It tells the tale of homicidal, pint-sized monsters terrorizing a town in New York.
“With its Christmas lights and dusting of snow, Kingston Falls is an idyllic small town–until the gremlins take over. A father returns from Chinatown with an unusual pet, a Mogwai–a gift for his son. The rules are simple: Keep your Mogwai away from water, bright lights and, most importantly, never — never — feed him after midnight. But the rules are inadvertently broken, and the consequences multiply at an alarming rate,” the official synopsis reads.
