Animated Prequel to ‘Gremlins’ is Greenlit!

With animated shows, there would have been plenty of design and proof-of-concept work done. It’s not as simple as rolling out a pilot episode with animation, so this explains the long lead time from the February announcement of a possible TV show, and the final green light, which happened yesterday. The new show will be called ‘Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai‘ and will be set in Shanghai on the 1920’s.

Variety report that the series will tell the story of how a young Mr. Wing met the Mogwai called Gizmo.

Set in 1920s Shanghai, the series will tell the story of how 10-year-old Sam Wing (future shop owner Mr. Wing in the 1984 movie) met the young Mogwai called 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. 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.

The series has been ordered for 10-episode run, each being half-hour in length. The show will stream exclusively on the WarnerMedia streaming service. Yep..that’s another streaming service being launched in an already crowded market.

The original Gremlins film was Directed by Joe Dante and released in 1984, becoming a huge major box office success. A sequel called Gremlins 2: The New Batch, was warmly received and turned away from its horror origins, replacing the murder and violence with much zanier, and family friendly, content. Talks of third film have persisted for years, but the new series is as close as we have ever come to more green-meany screen time.