In the past, news of another Gremlins movie has followed a leap-year schedule, with director Joe Dante popping up to dismiss or support the rumors about every four years or so. But 2015 has seen multiple reports on the new film, with everyone from Dante to Chris Columbus, who wrote the first two movies, commenting on the direction it will take. And now Zach Galligan, the non-Howie Mandel star of the first two films, has chimed in to reassure fans they probably won’t need to learn new rules for caring for their mogwais.
In an interview with BBC News (via Digital Spy), Galligan said the new movie will be a sequel, not a remake, and will pick up years after the events of Gremlins 2: The New Batch, a la Jurassic World. Galligan presumably has someone’s ear at Warner Bros., as he sounded pretty confident that the new film, which is being written by Carl Ellsworth (Goosebumps), would not undo all the important, fuzzy work of the first two installments in the series.
It’s not going to be a reboot. It will not be a remake in any way, shape, or form. Chris Columbus has come out and said that the first film is very near and dear to his heart and as long as he is alive it will never be remade.
The actor also touched on Dante’s comments regarding how CGI would likely replace puppetry in bringing the mogwais and Gremlins to life, telling BBC News that he hoped the studio would be judicious in its use of CGI, or at least make sure it’s the “good” kind that was used in movies like Planet Of The Apes. Galligan also admitted that he hasn’t been offered a role in the new film yet, but he could very well appear in the sequel since his character, Billy Peltzer, survived the events of the previous ones. It has been 25 years since Gremlins 2, though, which means Billy and Kate (who was played by Phoebe Cates), will probably return to the suburbs after decades of paying exorbitant rents in the big city, to ensure that everything really does come full circle.