Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch is widely considered a cornerstone of Hollywood batshittery. Now a cult classic, the 1990 sequel arrived six years after Dante’s original horror-comedy to decent reviews but comparatively middling box office returns, thus putting a nail in the franchise’s tiny, Gizmo-shaped coffin. Talks of reboots and the like have circulated in the decades since, but, apart from this glorious Key & Peele sketch and an animated prequel on HBO Max, it doesn’t seem like we’re getting any new live-action Gremlins action in the near future.
Which is a shame, because, as A.V. Club favorite Nick Lutsko makes clear, a plot for a third entry is right there for the taking. Enjoy as Lutsko couches his pitch in some damn catchy Billy Joel-esque anthem rock.
Lutsko offers up a number of gremlin tie-in options including Gremlins vs. Home Alone, a “Jaws-like gremlin shark,” and/or cameos in both Attack of the Clones and Jurassic Park. We’re honestly on board with any of these, but then comes the true idea for a third Gremlins, which we will simply transcribe for you in its entirety:
Imagine there’s a film where Gizmo becomes a gremlin who teaches the other gremlins about democracy and philosophy. They develop a country—they call it “Gremlin Nation.” They ban all immigration. They have genocidal tendencies. Gizmo isn’t into it. Also, he has a kid with a human woman played by Jennifer Aniston. We can call it Gremlins 3!
And that is how you goddamn do it. But, as Lutsko reminds us, our cruel gods deprived us a third Gremlins movie in favor of “COVID and 9/11.” Our only hope is that Joe Dante and Steven Spielberg see this. Aniston, too. Internet, you know what to do.
Send Great Job, Internet sequels to [email protected]
24 Comments
The answer is : in the white house.
Makes perfect sense to me. The Clamp character in The New Batch was a pretty direct take-off on Trump anyway.
He also has more than a little Ted Turner in him.
he was sort of a combination of Ted Turner and Trump.
He was even meant to be a straight up villain but the filmmakers decided it’d be more fun for him to be a more or less nice, if not eccentric/a little off his rocker rich guy.
Gremlins 3: The Q Batch
It eats after midnight……Every night
“Never let them tweet after midnight”
at 4 Washington Lane!!!
RedLetterMedia already made that pitch.
If it helps there used to be a Gremlins ride at Warner Bros. Movie World in both Australia and Germany that with the Australian one featuring Beetlejuice and the German one featuring ALF.
Podcast: The Ride did a whole episode on these guys a few weeks back. It sounded amazing
Redlettermedia basically covered this more thoroughly. Why it would make more sense for the 3rd movie to be a sequel set in the White House. Clamp is president, Billy is painting his presidential portrait. Gremlins get out and cause shenanigans and also incite juicy political satire.
“The Gremlins are passing legislation!”
“YAY!” “NAY!” “YAY!” “NAY!”
Robert Picardo and the paint they called a bodysuit on 7 of 9 were the only reasons to watch Voyager!
I lol’ed at instead we got 14 Land of Times. I’ve seen most of them recently because my two year old loves them. They’re pretty bad
Don’t sugar coat it, they’re fucking abominations, and a disgrace to storytelling, children’s entertainment, paleontology, animation, and the legacy of Don Bluth. Being better used as weapons in psychological warfare with the purpose of sapping a human being’s will to live. I wept as a child watching the original, because it taught me lessons that all children must learn, and growing is painful. I wept as a man watching the sequels because they are weaponized mediocrity and a blight no sane human can endure (thus children, in their madness, watch them with glee, eyes gimlet and mouths frozen in feral rictus, for these “films” saps thought and inure their spirits to the deeper thoughts of man) I have witnessed the return of the paternal longnecked Sutherlund, I have been regaled by the sea born hymns of the journey to the waters beyond the valley, I have wandered through mists, felt the touch of cold fire, seen the island mysterious. I am haunted by these experiences, and I weep to know you too have suffered so…How many others are doomed to the torments found in those lands before the reckoning of time? How many others must endure such horrors to sate the hungry spirits of their beloved spawn?
I’ve probably seen that Key & Peele sketch 8 times. It’s *chef’s kiss.* (And incidentally, as a child of the ‘80s, I need periodic reminders of the bonkers sweaters and glasses we wore back then.)
Love it how all of Nick Lutsko’s recent videos appear to be filmed inside of a sauna.
There’s a lot of sweat coming off this man, his feverish intensity has convinced me. I too now desire Gremlins 3, the reckoning is nigh!
https://bajohnston.bandcamp.com/album/gremlinz-3