Tag: Joe Dante

Is there Really a Third ‘Gremlins’ in the works?

gremlinsmogwai

Bloody-Disgusting recently made a set visit to ‘The Hole’ to speak with director Joe Dante. During their visit, the topic of ‘Gremlins’ came up and the question of whether or not a third ‘Gremlins’ was in the works surfaced. According to Dante, it’s not currently happening but he seems pretty confident that it will at some point.

“I find it hard to believe that they won’t make a GREMLINS 3 because they’re remaking ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING. I mean, they’re gonna remake everything.” — Joe Dante

Oh, God! That’s news in and of it’s self, but not good news. ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ remake? Really? We can add this to the list of movies that need not be remade, although it does fit into the category of movies that could be remade better.

OK, back to ‘Gremlins’… I LOVE the ‘Gremlins’ movies, well, the first one anyway was awesome! ‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch’ was a lot of fun, but kind of cheesy, which in turn is actually part of why it was so much fun. Then again, can you really hate any movie that features Christopher Lee?

Dante went on to expressly insist that he’ll have no involvement in the possible making of a third ‘Gremlins’ movie. Personally, the first movie will always be the only true ‘Gremlins’ and anything and everything after is just fluff. Then again, given the right players in front of and behind the camera, a third (or dare I say even a remake) movie could prove quite interesting with our advances in technology… and no, I’m not just talking about CGI.

Joe Dante apparently is, however, very much involved in the remastering the first two ‘Gremlins’ movies for their upcoming Blu-Ray release. Sweet! I knew there was a reason I’ve held out on buying them this long…

[source: Bloody-Disgusting]

Poster of the Week… ‘Piranha’ (1978)

Title: Piranha (1978)

Studio: New World Pictures

Directed by: Joe Dante

Written by: John Sayles

Plot: When flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort’s rivers, the guests become their next meal.. [IMDB]

Taglines:

  • There’s something in the water at Lost River Lake. Something you can’t see…something you can’t feel…until it’s too late!
  • Then… you were shocked by the great white shark – Now… you are at the mercy of 1000 jaws!

Ah, the glory of the 70’s! Films like this make me proud to be a Movie Geek. No, seriously! Sure, it’s a cheesy nature vs. man horror flick, but it was actually fairly well done. ‘Piranha’ won the Saturn Award for Best Editing and Best Horror Film in 1979 from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA. What’s even more interesting to me though, is that it was written by legendary indie filmmaker John Sayles (Matewan, Eight Men Out). During a period of time, Sayles wrote screenplays such as this to sell to “lesser” filmmakers and even occasionally worked as a “script doctor”, hired on to save less than workable screenplays by other writers. ‘Piranha’ spawned a sequel in 1981 called ‘Piranha 2: The Spawning’ and has now procreated a new coming revival with the in development ‘Piranha 3-D’, which hopes to begin production this year. The new higher-tech edition to the franchise will be helmed by Alexandre Aja (Mirrors).

Trivia Tid Bit: Bradford Dillman was originally unhappy with his character’s 2D nature, and asked writer John Sayles why his character was so thin. Sayles responded that Roger Corman regularly did not use good actors in his film, so he deliberately didn’t elaborate on characters. But since Dillman was a “real” actor, he was more than happy to enhance his character’s depth. [IMDB]