‘Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai’ Executive Producers Compare Max Series to Films (Exclusive)

When Max made its debut last week, the series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai also premiered and is a prequel to the Gremlins movies which debuted in the 1980s and 1990s. But will the animated series make the same impact as Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch? PopCulture.com spoke to Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai executive producers Tze Chun and Brendan Hay, and they compared their series to the films. 

“I think they’re complementary and one of the things I like about the two films is that the second film isn’t a rehash of the first film,” Hay exclusively told PopCulture. “It’s not just kind of like, ‘Oh, here’s another Kingston Falls gets hit again.’ They are their own standalone thing. I think we’re our own standalone thing as well. You can just enjoy it as the first film is this scary suburban adventure, the second one is this kind of wacky, crazy comedy in New York City, and we are this sprawling, epic kind of journey through 1920s China, all connected by my favorite little trickster creatures you could have. So I think we have our own lane while kind of being a big part of the heritage of Gremlins.”

With Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai being a prequel, fans learn more about Gizmo and how he gets in contact with Mr. Wing (Sam Wing in the series) who is seen in the Gremlins and Gremlins 2. The two are on a journey through China to get Gizmo back home. But the two have their challenges along the way, including running away from Riley Green and his crew. 

The series was special for Chun who was a producer and writer for the Fox series Gotham. “The opportunity to work on anything in the Gremlins universe was something I was really excited about,” Chun said. “But beyond that, setting it in 1920s China, we were able to weave in a lot of the Chinese mythology spirits and creatures and monsters that I grew up being scared of when I was a kid. And it was just really exciting to be able to weave all that through the series because Mogwai obviously have rules. They’re funny and they’re weird and they’re scary, and that’s kind of what a lot of Chinese creatures and monsters are like. And I’m hoping that for American audiences who maybe this is their first exposure to this mythology, that it’s another really cool backdrop for them to be exposed to.”

New episodes of Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai premiere every Tuesday on Max.