Gremlins Script
The original script for Gremlins was written by then unknown Chris Columbus who would later go on to direct big film hits such as Home alone 1 and 2, Harry Potter chamber of secrets and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He was Inspired to write the script by the fear of the mice that would roam his loft apartment in Manhattan, this fear of small creatures terrorizing his home gave birth to Gremlins. What brought him to the idea of calling these creatures gremlins stemmed from his father who would explain problems with his car being due to gremlins in the machine, this superstition again comes back to the WW2 RAF superstition of gremlins being onboard their planes. The script sees the character of Gizmo being purchased from a small store in china town this again was inspired by Chris Columbus's life, with him in his younger adulthood, frequently going to china town to purchase cheap dinners, in these trips to china town he would see small stores down alley ways and staircases and imagined small exotic creatures being sold in them. The original script was a lot darker than the original film, including scenes in which the mother of the main character's head is decapitated by gremlin and another where all the gremlins would go in to a McDonalds and eat all the customers but leave the food on the tables. Though when this script was sent out it would be rejected by multiple studios and producers until one producer got back and wanted to buy the script, this producer was Steven Spielberg. With this, Steven Spielberg and Chris Columbus began to work on rewriting the script, in these script rewrites Steven Spielberg pushed for a more audience friendly version to be made with one of the biggest changes being the idea of a friendly gremlin being added, this friendly gremlin would later be named Gizmo. Chris Columbus was very thankful for this mentoring and was open to the changes and when several rewrites of the script where completed it was ready for production.
(Above cast and crew pictured with the collection of gremlin puppets)
Directing Of Gremlins
Once the script was completed Steven Spielberg got Joe Dante on to direct, previously known for Piranha and a film called the Howling. Joe Dante was a struggling movie director at the time so the chance to work with Steven Spielberg he jumped at. When it came to casting the main characters it was Steven's concept for fantasy films that the main cast was played by relatively unknown actors and actresses so the audience would see past big names and just believe in the cinematic world presented to them. The film would see Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates cast as the Romantic duo along with Howie Mandel voicing Gizmo. Joe Dante was also an avid horror fan so he cast many well known actors from early horror films such as Harry Carey Jr, Dick Miller and Ken Tobey who was the star of the original The Thing Film. The movie was designed as a satire take on the Christmas classic Its a Wonderful Life. It was considered that the film would be shot on a real location though Director Joe Dante disagreed with this as he felt the gremlins would look more realistic on a stylised set built in a backlot.
(Above Director Joe Dante repositioning Gremlin puppet)
Making of The Gremlin Creatures
When it came to finally making the Gremlin props the studio hired Chris Walas to begin building the creatures. Few design notes where given to him when entering the project with several sketches done by screenwriter Chris Columbus and a note from Steven Spielberg that the fur on Gizmo and the other Mogwais resemble the same fur seen on his pet King Charles Spaniels. Chris Walas had several key design elements he felt where crucial to the Gremlin's design. One being that their ears were very expressive with him calling them "mood indicators". This was because for both the Mogwai and the Gremlins they would manly express through their ears with them shooting up when surprised, fold back when their angry and fold down when sad. It was these simple design elements that brought soo much character to the gremlins. Chris Walas would also push for actors to treat the Gizmo and the gremlins like true living breathing creatures, he did this by having the actors come into the studio and holding gizmo like a baby and showing him affection.
(Above Chris Walas pictured with the Gremlin antagonist Stripe)
The gremlin and mogwai puppets would be manned by several people with 40 to 50 cables coming out from the bottom of them linking them to several controllers. There would be variations on the capabilities of each puppet with characters like Gizmo and the main antagonistic Stripe having several controllers and in-depth face movement though on the other hand other gremlins that appeared in background of scenes would have more simplistic controllers with limited movement. As the animatronics weren't capable to be built to scale, characters like Gizmo, for in-depth facial movements, an oversized versions of him had to be made with more in-depth facial movement available to the controllers.
(Below Prototype puppets for the Mogwai and Gremlins)
(Below oversized Gizmo being handed oversized 3D glasses by Chris Walas)
(Below Chris Walas and gremlin puppets to be used in film promo pieces)
Gremlins Score
The composer for Gremlins was Jerry Goldsmith, who's an industry veteran when coming to scoring films. With films such as Rambo, Star Trek, Planet of the apes and total recall under his belt Jerry Goldsmith was more than capable for composing the iconic music of gremlins. Not just using an orchestra to create the music but also using a mix of electronic sounds to almost implement the demonic gremlins into the music as if they where also terrorising the orchestra as well.
Gremlins Public Reception
The film came out to an amazing reception and box office earnings on the first weekend where $12,511,634 and with only a budget of $11,000,000 it was clear the film was a big success. Not only did it break even in the first weekend it was also able to make more money on the second weekend than the opening which is almost unheard of in the film making industry. Overall the film would gross $148,168,459 worldwide and establish this film as a classic. The film came with the rating of PG though this was controversial among parents at the time as the film did contain many scenes of violence and blood, with even one scene seeing the gremlins tampering with a stair lift and sending an old lady to her death. So this film along with the Film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom gave birth to the new rating of PG13.
Gremlins 2 The New Batch Production
Gremlins 2 is an interesting film and its writing and directing process reflects that, when coming to make this film Joe Dante and other lead writers wanted to make a film that was a mockery of the classic Hollywood sequel. Joe Dante would go on to say in an interview with Chicago reader in 2012 “We decided to do a movie that not only made fun of the first movie and all those horror movie tropes, but got away with some social satire as well.”. The film would poke fun at several subjects with it seeing the gremlins infest a New York skyscraper which is the brain child of an egotistical billionaire, so also functioning as a mockery of Donald Trump in a sense. The tower and the employees inside would constantly propose new technology and ideals that would demonstrate the current capitalistic landscape of the business world in the 80s. Almost as a solution to this the gremlins would come in and easily tear it down showing how easily this new world order can be disturbed. Though even in this satirical take Joe Dante was still aware that this film would have heavy merchandise and didn't want to contradict this message. The final scenes would see Billionaire Business man behind the building propose the idea of trademarking gizmo and selling merchandise of him everywhere. The film would continue to poke fun at other areas of the industry and even the absurdity of the sequel even being a thing. This satirical take on a sequel didn't go down well at the time but now the sequel has picked up a cult status and is loved by fans of the series.
Gremlins 2 Making the New Batch
This time around the film would see Rick Baker take over the design making process of the new batch of gremlins. Rick Baker is known for working on the visual effects of several films such as the Men In Black series, Tim Burtons 2001 Planet of the Apes, 2005 King Kong and The Grinch. He was reluctant to come onboard the project at first as he didn't want to just recreate the original designs from the 1st film created by Chris Walas and instead wanted to create a distinct look for his new batch. He would base some of the designs off of popular Warner Brother characters, such as two gremlins representing George and Lenny from the book of mice and men and another gremlin representing Daffy from looney tunes. He also created several mutated gremlins that all added to the distinct look of Gremlins 2, such as incredibly intelligent and sophisticated, The Brain who only wanted equal rights for gremlins, the femme fatale Gremlin called Greta and the most impressive creation, the Spider Gremlin which was huge animatronic that saw the blend of a spider with the leading gremlin antagonist of Mohawk.
Gremlins 2 Public Reception
Gremlins 2 to this day still has a very divided opinion with some calling it an average sequel that added nothing new with others saying its even better than the original, this mentality is even shared by the director of the gremlin series Joe Dante who to this day prefers his sequel.
Though even with this critical divide one thing is certain, that gremlins 2 massively underperformed at the box office with it only making $41.5 million domestically with it having an original budget of 30 million (not including marketing). Though years later Gremlins 2 has definitely seen a cult revival and going back to the film personally (During this research I made sure to go back and give both films a re-watch) with the knowledge of what Joe Dante was trying to tell I have gained more of an appreciation for this film and thoroughly enjoyed re-watching it though personally I still believe the Original is much better.
How this could Influence my Work Going Forward
Of course when coming into picking this topic, I'm already a massive fan of the film series. Though this makes it crucial that even in this early stage I don't just try and make a game that depicts the events of the film. Going further into the reason behind the design and narrative of these films will help lead me in other directions they didn't go. Though there is one area that intrigues me coming off this research and that is Chris Columbus's original inspiration of these creatures being based of mice. This got me thinking what if there's a world in which there's just these fantastical creature that infests places like a rodents and people just teach them as such, this idea has got me very excited as I do feel like it could turn into something truly interesting, I will explore this idea going further.