It's been some time since audiences spent much time with Gizmo and the rest of the Mogwai, but an animated GREMLINS prequel series is in the works for the HBO Max streaming service. Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai will be set in 1920s Shanghai and tell the tale of how 10-year-old Sam Wing (the elderly shop-keeper from the two live-action movies) met the young Mogwai named 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."
Tze Chun (Gotham) is writing the series as well as serving as executive producer, and he recently spoke with Geek Vibes Nation to offer a quick update. Chun revealed that they're pretty deep in the process right now and that we can expect to hear some casting announcements soon, but as for whether or not Howie Mandel will be returning to voice Gizmo, as he did in the two feature-films, Chun confirmed that Mandel will not be back. Although Mandel won't be returning, Chun teased that the series will include a few exciting cameos.
There is definitely going to be some exciting cameos from people. What has been really exciting is that Joe Dante is a consulting producer on the project. He looks at scripts, he looks at the artwork. It’s been really amazing. And I know that a lot of people on the crew and the writers are huge huge Gremlin fans. So it has been really great.
As far as the animation style they're planning on using for Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, Tze Chun said that they're doing something of a hybrid. "They have been calling it kind of a 2.5D and also there is certain technical things that we are doing because we wanted a very cinematic look," Chun said. "For some of the references were movies like Goonies and Indiana Jones. We certainly want to move the camera in a cinematic way but we ant to try to get the best of both worlds. The show has a lot of heart, so I want to make sure that the acting is really excellent as well. In terms of animation, very early on the supervising producer and I talked a lot about creating a very organic look and making sure that it does not necessarily have that kind of CG look to it, even though there will be portions of it that are in CG. Some other visual references are Spirited Away." Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai is expected to debut on HBO Max sometime in 2021.