Joe Dante has some great movies under his belt; Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins, Explorers, Innerspace, The ‘Burbs, Matinee, Small Soilders, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. If you were a kid of the 80s, like me, I grew up on most of them and still love them today.
It’s been a while since Dante has sat in the director’s chair. The last thing he did was a section of Nightmare Cinema, a portmanteau of three short stories. It was on Shudder and I couldn’t finish it, the first 20 minutes were terrible. I don’t think I got to Dante’s story.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch might have been the greatest troll in cinema history. The first Gremlins was a smash hit so a second one was going to be made, with or without Dante. He directed and had a lot of fun and a paycheque. Gremlins 2 bombed so talk of a third one just faded away.
Talking about a third Gremlins movie and if he would direct, Dante said:
“That’s up to the audience. The fact is that it’s too big a property for somebody not to make something. But it’s been difficult for people to wrap their heads around, ‘Exactly how are we going to do this?’ This series is a brilliant answer to that problem because it’s a prequel, and it’s animated, and it’s the perfect next step in the Gremlins saga.”
He is talking about the Gremlins animated TV series, which has just been renewed for a second series. Did anyone see the first series? I heard about it, but that was about it.
The ‘Burbs TV Series
Gremlins isn’t the only of Dante’s movies that will get the small screen treatment, Peacock is producing The ‘Burbs TV show. It seems he didn’t really want much to do with it, he went on to say:
“I think my actual comment was, ‘How are they going to make a whole TV series out of that story?’ As opposed to, ‘I want to be the one to do it.’ Good luck to them. It’s kind a one-off story…It’s always nice when things have a shelf life.”
He’s not big on sequels, is he? I get his point though, some things have a ‘one-off story’, then they should be left alone. For examples, see pretty much every remake in the past 10 years.
