With his first film for five years, Pixels, due for release in the next few months, director Chris Columbus has started doing the press rounds to promote the CGI-action spectacular starring Adam Sandler (Grown Ups 2), Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2), Michelle Monaghan (True Detective) and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones). But while the emphasis was on his latest project, SlashFilm asked the director about one of his most famous porject, 1984’s Gremlins, and the status of the long-talked about remake/reboot.
On the new version, Columbus told the site: “I am involved. Initially I remember back in ’84-’85 when they approached me and said, do you wanna write the sequel and I said, this is before the obsession with franchises. So my feeling was no. We’ve told the story, that was that’s 1980’s thinking. And then suddenly all these years later, we were approached with an idea that really sounded like an interesting version. It’s not a remake of the movie at all. It’s a, it’s just a reinvention of it.”
The director refused to go into specifics, maybe due to the fact that a new draft of the script was currently being written, but he did say that some of the original characters could return:
“Maybe. I mean, one thing I learned from the Star Wars trailer is — and actually, we knew this all along and J.J.’s been doing it and really doing it effectively, beautifully is touching into that emotional connection we have with our past. And he did it with Star Trek, just by casting Leonard Nimoy in that role in that movie, and really having that connection. So when I saw the Star Wars trailer and saw Chewie and Han Solo at the end of the trailer, I was, it was emotional. And that’s what everybody wanted for the past 30 years. We had wanted that. So for me, I would wanna get involved if we could create some sort of emotional connection even though it’s a new story.”
Carl Ellsworth (Goosebumps) is the latest writer to take a crack at the script, with both Columbus and Steven Spielberg set to produce the new Gremlins, but original director Joe Dante will not be involved, stating at the Riviera Maya Film Festival this weekend that: “I don’t own the project. It’s owned by other people. They remake pictures that people just didn’t want to see remade. Did anybody really want to see another RoboCop?”
Are you looking forward to a Gremlins remake? Let us know in the comments below…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pnc360pUDRI&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published April 27, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
