Gremlins Star More Interested Than Ever in Third Film Following Mountain Dew Reunion

In the more than three decades since Gremlins 2: The New Batch landed in theaters, fans of the franchise have wondered if we could ever get a third film, with a new Mountain Dew commercial seeing star Zach Galligan reunite with the adorable Gizmo, ultimately making him more interested in ever than moving forward with a new sequel. With this new commercial being the closest we’ve gotten to a new Gremlins movie, and with Galligan having shown his interest in a third film, some might think that this opportunity would have satiated him, only for the technological advances he witnessed while making the commercial resulting in him being even more passionate for a longer reunion.

“Much, much more interested, because one of the things about doing the Gremlins movies is you would watch, even the difference between 1983 and 1989, effects, technology-wise was really a quantum leap,” Galligan shared with ComicBook.com about his interest levels in a third film. “One of the reasons was that Chris Walas, who did a fantastic job in the first movie, he really didn’t have a whole lot of technology to work with. In fairness to him, he would admit, it was his first major gig. So he was under a lot of pressure and he didn’t have as much experience as, probably in retrospect, he would have liked to have had.”

He added, “Then, flash-forward to 1989, six years of technological growth, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can in technology, the six years can be gargantuan, and the technology was a lot better. And, obviously, we hired Rick Baker, who’s the greatest special effects guy of all time, with seven Oscars and 12 nominations to show for it. They tell you the effects on that, given the technology of the time, were absolutely jaw-dropping.”

While puppet movements in the first two films might have been somewhat limited for the Mogwai and Gremlins, the success of The Mandalorian‘s “Baby Yoda” has proven just how compelling a practical-effects approach to an otherworldly creature can be when the actual techniques have evolved.

“So now, fast forward to this commercial, and it’s 30 — you’re talking three decades later and it’s a completely different technological world,” Galligan noted. “And you have the dialogue pre-synced with the mouth movements, with the animatronics having 37 different cables for parts of his face. This thing and that thing, if someone sees the cable, it doesn’t matter. There’s this new thing called ‘CGI’ where you can just erase the cable. It’s just exponentially easier to do stuff with this technology. It just makes me feel like, if it’s Gremlins 3 and there were a whole bunch of sequences with me and Gizmo, whereas the first one took us two months to shoot, I think this time it would take us about 10 days. It just would be so much faster.”

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Gremlins franchise.

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