‘Gremlins 3’ Can’t Fail With This Team Behind It — Even If Joe Dante Isn’t Involved

When Joe Dante‘s Gremlins came out in 1984, it was not only one of the biggest movies of the year, but its use of violence helped create the PG-13 rating. The latter shouldn’t have been much of a surprise for families who went in expecting a wholesome movie, because Chris Columbus‘ original script was hard-R before executive producer Steven Spielberg got involved and made the focus a good guy, Gizmo. The success led to Dante returning to the director’s chair in 1990 for the meta comedy Gremlins 2: The New Batch, but since then, it’s been three decades of teases for a third film. Now, however, it’s official: Gremlins 3 is finally happening! Sadly, Joe Dante isn’t involved, but Columbus and Spielberg are returning. On top of that, Final Destination: Bloodlines plays a part in the news as well. With so much incredible talent, how can Gremlins 3 fail?

Chris Columbus Will Direct ‘Gremlins 3’

The big name missing from the Gremlins 3 announcement was Joe Dante. The iconic director not only helmed the two Gremlins films, but he’s also responsible for horror classics such as The Howling and Piranha. Still, Dante famously had no desire to make a second Gremlins and only gave in when Warner Bros. allowed him to do whatever he wanted (and oh, did he take that to heart!). The 78-year-old hasn’t directed a movie since 2014’s Burying the Ex, and although Deadline reported last year that he’s making a comeback for Little Shop of Halloween Horrors, which was supposed to have Roger Corman on board as well, if the Gremlins franchise is moving on to someone else, they’ve found the perfect person.

So often these days, when a horror-centric franchise makes a return to the big screen, they do it with someone new, such as when John Carpenter‘s Halloween came back with a David Gordon Green trilogy, or when Radio Silence took over from the late Wes Craven to make two Scream movies. Gremlins won’t be doing that with Chris Columbus, because choosing him is not only staying in-house with the man who wrote the first film, but they’ve got a creative mind who went on to have a massively successful career as a director. Columbus is the mastermind behind Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two entries in the Harry Potter series. He knows how to excite audiences and give them what they want, but in unpredictable ways. He has the technical and storytelling ability to make a Gremlins film that’s not just a cash-in on the past, but something that can succeed on its own. Plus, very importantly, he told Collider years ago that another Gremlins movie would have only practical monsters and no CGI.

Steven Spielberg Helped Shape ‘Gremlins’ As an Executive Producer

Steven Spielberg didn’t write or direct Gremlins, but it’s his name that you see first when the movie begins, and for good reason. When Spielberg wasn’t creating his own masterpieces in the 80s, he was shaping the direction of them. He executive-produced the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Goonies, just to name a few, and his fingerprints were all over Poltergeist to the point that many think he secretly directed it. You can bet he’ll be very involved with Gremlins 3, and it won’t be for the first time either.

Chris Columbus’s original Gremlins script was a straight-up creature feature horror movie, with the mom being killed, the monsters ripping through a whole McDonald’s full of people, and Gizmo having the big bad Stripe role. When Steven Spielberg got hold of it, he sought to make the movie more approachable for families by keeping the fears intact, but making it a boy and his dog-like story in the vein of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. He even went so far as to give the Mogwai fur that resembled his own dog. This is the same approach that should be taken for Gremlins 3. It doesn’t have to be as wacky as Gremlins 2, and it can be darker in this darker era of films we’re in, yet it can’t lose the awe and whimsy of the past. With Spielberg producing, he won’t let that happen.

The Writers of ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ Are Telling the Story for ‘Gremlins 3’

Image via Warner Bros.

Perhaps most intriguing about the Gremlins 3 announcement is who the writers are going to be. Landing the gig are Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the directors of this year’s Final Destination: Bloodlines. That film was arguably the best in the franchise’s six-film history because it wasn’t the usual paint-by-numbers sequel where shocking deaths reign and the mostly thinly-written characters are there to be fodder for Rube Goldberg splatter scenes. They kept audiences on their toes with a familiar story yet went in a different and fascinating direction, and they did it with a cast we cared about, from the supporting players to the leads.

Imagine them doing the same for Gremlins 3. You can bet that Zach Galligan will return if he’s asked, but Phoebe Cates, who retired in 2001, might be a harder sell. The easiest scenario would be Billy Peltzer (Galligan) being a divorced dad with teenage kids, and now they become the focal point of the story as Gizmo gets wet, and the chaos starts all over again. Lipovsky and Stein can come up with something much better, though, or if they stick with the obvious, they’ve proven they can do it in a way that’s not so easy to pin down. And unfortunately for the gremlins themselves, they need to prepare themselves for some disgusting and brutal deaths with these guys writing their fate. The fad of legacy reboots and redoing the past doesn’t often work, but if anyone can create a Gremlins movie that lives up to the first two, it’s these four men.

Gremlins 3 comes to theaters on November 19, 2027.