GREMLINS ranks right up next to GHOSTBUSTERS as a movie that we wanted a sequel to for the longest time but now just seems like a bad idea. The nail in the coffin was last year when director Joe Dante said he would not be involved in any sequel or reboot of GREMLINS. Still, screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith worked on a draft for a new movie.
From the sounds of it, GREMLINS may not be on any sort of a fast track. Grahame-Smith recently shared the status on a lot of his projects with Entertainment Weekly, including BEETLEJUICE 2, THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE, UNHOLY NIGHT, Stephen King‘s IT, and GREMLINS.
“I think we just ran out of steam,” Grahame-Smith says. “It’s one of those things where everybody got busy doing other things. It’s something I would love to come back to, but right now Steven’s making two movies back to back and Chris Columbus is busy. We’re all taking a five-minute break on that.”
While GREMLINS doesn’t sounds completely dead yet, it isn’t too far off. Steven Spielberg has been notorious in recent years for working on projects only to drop them months or years later. While JURASSIC WORLD certainly took a lot of time to get to screens, it seems to have been done with a lot of thought and consideration for the original movie. If GREMLINS is going to be rebooted or get a sequel, I want it done right and not in the sake of making a buck. So, if that means we need to wait forever, so be it.