Gremlins, those slimy, homicidal monsters who are known to lay waste to entire towns (or, in some cases, New York high-rises) are back — and this time, they’re animated. Variety has learned that WarnerMedia is in the process of working on a Gremlins animated series for its upcoming streaming service.
While Warner hasn’t issued an official comment, it’s said that the series will be a prequel, centering on Mr. Wing, Keye Luke’s Chinese grandfather from the first two movies. The story will follow Wing as a young man on his adventures with the friendly Mogwai, Gizmo. The series will be produced by Warner Bros. Television and Amblin Television, who also produced the two films on which the show will be based.
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Tze Chun (Children of Invention, Gotham) will write and executive produce the series. Gremlins first took the box office by storm in director Joe Dante’s 1984 Christmas/horror/comedy. In 1990, Dante returned for Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which had a much lighter tongue-in-cheek tone than the first film.
The announcement comes as WarnerMedia dives into the streaming service game, joining Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS All Access, the soon-to-be-launched Disney+, along with many, many others. Original content won’t be expected to arrive on Warner’s streaming platform until sometime in 2020.
On the big screen, Chris Columbus revealed back in 2017 that he’d written a script for a third Gremlins movie, which has yet to be produced.
