Warner Bros. has delayed "Gremlins 3" from its original November 19, 2027 release date to October 6, 2028. A teaser has also been released.
Too bad Joe Dante, 79, isn't coming back to direct—his imagination runs wild when it comes to this franchise. We'll have to make do with Chris Columbus. Steven Spielberg, who produced the original through Amblin Entertainment, still holds major sway over the franchise and is returning as executive producer.
The date change probably has to do with the fact that "Gremlins 3" has yet to begin production, which was recently pushed back to early 2027. Despite the delay, what's clear is that "Gremlins 3" is no longer just a pipe dream. That shouldn't come as a shock: with the massive box office success of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," another decades-later follow-up, studios are even more bullish on legacy sequels.
"Gremlins 3" has been in various stages of development for years. Columbus, who wrote the original 1984 film, has long been attached. In 2017, he described the new installment as a direct sequel—not a reboot—and teased a "twisted and dark" script, an earlier draft of which involved Carl Ellsworth ("Disturbia," "Red Eye"). The current screenplay is by Columbus with Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the directing duo behind "Final Destination: Bloodlines."
Columbus has also said the gremlins will not be CGI but will return to the practical puppetry that defined the original films. With a script in place and Spielberg on board, cameras are now expected to roll in early 2027.
The first two "Gremlins" movies were real treats, especially "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (1990), in which Dante turned the franchise into a wild, self-aware satire that pushed every boundary of the original. Instead of repeating the first film, Dante exploded it—mixing slapstick, Looney Tunes chaos, and satire of consumer culture and of sequels themselves.
As for Columbus, he was the director critics loved to hate in the '90s and early aughts, even as he directed a slew of hits: "Home Alone," "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Stepmom," and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
Columbus most recently directed "The Thursday Murder Club" for Netflix, a fairly well-received hit for the streamer. His output over the past two decades hasn't been much to write home about, with titles like "Rent," "I Love You, Beth Cooper," "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," and "Pixels."
While Alfonso Cuarón directed “Disclaimer,” a 2024 Apple TV series, the Mexican-born filmmaker hasn’t helmed a feature film in nearly eight years, not since his Oscar-winning “Roma” in 2018.