After lying dormant for thirty years, the GREMLINS franchise is finally about to receive a new chapter – in an unexpected form. It doesn't look like we'll be getting a live action sequel or reboot any time soon, but the HBO Max streaming service will be bringing us an animated series called Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.
HBO Max will be launching in May, but don't expect to dive into this show as soon as the streaming service goes live. Co-executive producer Brendan Hay has confirmed to Collider that the first season of Secrets of the Mogwai, which is expected to consist of ten episodes, won't be released until sometime in 2021. We hadn't heard an update on the show since last July, so at least now we know that it's still moving forward and is on track to make its way out into the world next year.
Written by Tze Chun (also a co-executive producer), the series has the following synopsis:
In the animated television adaptation, we travel back to 1920s Shanghai to reveal the story of how 10-year-old Sam Wing (future shop owner Mr. Wing in the 1984 movie) met the young Mogwai called Gizmo. Along with a teenage street thief named Elle, Sam and Gizmo take a perilous journey through the Chinese countryside, encountering, and sometimes battling, colorful monsters and spirits from Chinese folklore. On their quest to return Gizmo to his family and uncover a legendary treasure, they are pursued by a power-hungry industrialist and his growing army of evil Gremlins.
Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai is being produced by Amblin Television in association with Warner Bros. Animation. The executive producers are Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, and Sam Register. Dan Krall is a supervising producer.
It's good to know we have more Gremlins to look forward to in the near future… Now I have to recover from the shock of realizing that this year is the 30th anniversary of GREMLINS 2.