It’s been announced that a Gremlins prequel series is coming soon, and has been in production since February. The series is titled Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, and will have a home on the upcoming WarnerMedia streaming service. The series will be a prequel to the original 1984 film, and will focus on a story set in 1920s Shanghai. Per TV Line, it will reveal how “10-year-old Sam Wing (who goes on to be shop owner Mr. Wing in the 1984 movie and 1990 sequel) met the young Mogwai named Gizmo.”
“Along with a teenage street thief named Elle, Sam and Gizmo take a perilous journey through the Chinese countryside, encountering — and sometimes battling — colorful monsters and spirits from Chinese folklore,” an official description of the series adds. “On their quest to return Gizmo to his family and uncover a legendary treasure, they are pursued by a power-hungry industrialist and his growing army of evil Gremlins.”
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The series is written by Tze Chun (Gotham), who will also co-executive produce alongside Darryl Frank (The Americans), Justin Falvey (Bull), Sam Register (Young Justice) and Brendan Hay (The Daily Show).
News of the new prequel series comes just two years after original Gremlins writer Chris Columbus revealed that he had been working on a script for a third film in the horror franchise.
“I’m really proud of the script,” he told /Film at the time. “It is as twisted and dark as anything, so we’ll see. It’s always a budgetary conversation when we’re going to shoot it. I wanted to go back to the really twisted sensibility of the first movie. I found that was a very easy place for me to fall back into and start writing again so hopefully we’ll see that movie soon.”
The filmmaker then went on to shared that the plan for the film was to have “minimal CGI,” so as to recreated the puppeteering qualities that made the first two films so memorable.
“CGI will enable us to remove wires and make the puppeteers lives a little easier,” he said, then going on to recount how difficult things were on the first movie. “It was brutal. It was like a marathon every night for those guys. In the bar scene alone there were 18 [or] 20 people behind the bar. No one had any space to move. It was just hellish for those guys so CGI will simplify that a little bit but it’s all puppets.”
There is currently no announced premiere date for Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, but the WarnerMedia streaming service is expected to launch sometime in 2020.
