Chris Columbus on Why He’s Remaking GREMLINS

The road to getting this Gremlins remake into development as been a rocky one. It has been in development for a few years, and at one point it didn’t look like it was going to happen. Then earlier this month Warner Bros. hired Goosebumps and Disturbia screenwriter Carl Ellsworth to pen a new script for the film.

Chris Columbus was the guy who wrote the script for the original 1984 movie, and now he’s a producer are the upcoming remake, which he doesn’t want to admit is a remake. In an interview with /Film, he talked about why he is doing the project:

“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.”

Columbus wouldn't go into any details on the idea for the movie. I guess with a reinvention they can tell a completely different story, but still keep elements from the original movies that we enjoyed. It was also rumored that the movie could fall into a sequel category as well. When asked if the movie would include characters from the original movie he said: 

“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.”

It would be fun if we saw some original faces from the original movie. It sounds like that’s the direction they are headed. There’s a special place in my nostalgia-filled heart for Gremlins, and I hope that whatever they do turns out good. 

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