Gremlins Cartoon series coming for WB's Streaming service

[gaastra]

Well the 80s cartoon pilot gizmo and the gremlins never aired but looks gizmo is getting a cartoon after all.

https://www.newsarama.com/44064-gremlin ... eport.html

[EricJ]

Yep, it's on the list of Warner Auditionees, as they're going through a list of their past 80's-90's cult hits trying to find the "new house franchise" to fill in the sudden studio void left by Harry & Newt, Frodo & Bilbo, and Batman/Justice League.

I know they've been putting Willy Wonka, Beetlejuice, A Christmas Story, Wizard of Oz and the Robert Downey "Sherlock Holmes" on High-Rotation-Pimp this past year, but I forgot Gremlins was on the list too...Then again, up to a few weeks ago, so was The Lego Movie.
Quickest way to tell: If it gets a crossover video with Tom & Jerry (in addition to their own upcoming movie), then it's already made the second round of studio auditions. Three of them already did, so that just leaves the Matrix, Gremlins and BJ...Oh, and they'll probably work their way down to "The Goonies" by '20.

[Ben]

Of course, if Ghostbusters III is a hit (and a big one) then we’ll also get that "proper" Gremlins threequel movie too.

BRING BACK JOE DANTE!!

[EricJ]

Of course, if Ghostbusters III is a hit (and a big one) then we’ll also get that "proper" Gremlins threequel movie too.
BRING BACK JOE DANTE!!

Glad to see we're not counting Melissa McCarthy as "G3", and Sony's desperate attempt to create their own "House franchise" (we're also getting that Men in Black IV next summer and a Jumanji 2) is separate from Warner's attempt to exploit Gremlins and Space Jam.

Difference between Warner and Sony's franchise-goldmining being, at least Warner USED to have a "house franchise" years ago, or at least in the days back before "Justice League", "Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies" and "Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grundewald".

[Ben]

Sony actually has a bunch of franchises that I don’t think it really even knows it has! Outside of GB, the early-mid 80s were good to them in setting up a number of titles that could be mined with franchise potential.

With Spidey currently going great guns and MIB:I coming this summer, they’re actually in pretty good shape. Hotel Transylvania 4 was just dated, too, and they have more Angry Birds, and Jumanji as you say. I just don’t get the "Columbia has a dearth of franchises talk". I’m more concerned for Universal at this point, which has Jurassic and Illumination...and...er...?

Warners has a huge bunch of titles, too, though their handling of them has been hamfisted Of late to say the least. Obviously, of their big three of DC, Wizards and Middle Earth, only Wizards has been the ongoing success, though there is hope for the new direction DC is taking (is it all connected? Does it matter anymore? Does anyone care?), and I’m not sure I get the deal with Amazon for the new Rings. Does WB have a stake in this? Are they making it for Amazon? I can’t believr they let those rights slip away without a Harvey-style cut for making it the phenomenon it has been.

Looks like Lego has fizzled out, at least for now, but that was kind of anticipated once they tried to do an Iger and shove out extra Lego spinoffs at too fast a rate...Batman *and* Ninjas between the main movies? Too much, too fast and, from what Ninjago looked like, not good enough, so by the time of Lego 2, it was a case of feeling a bit Solo'd out. But that will bounce back...and big...come Christmas, when a "worth the wait" break between releases will prove the adage that you really can have too much of a good thing.

[EricJ]

Sony actually has a bunch of franchises that I don’t think it really even knows it has! Outside of GB, the early-mid 80s were good to them in setting up a number of titles that could be mined with franchise potential.

You wouldn't believe the directions Sony has gone in pursuit of trying to find that Uniquely-Sony house brand:
That Nicole Kidman "Bewitched" movie? Sony thinking they could sell 60's Screen Gems icons to a female audience. (We dodged an equally feminist-friendly "Jeannie" remake next.) They're still hoping to update one more bash at "Charlie's Angels".
Steve Martin in the "Pink Panther" remakes? Sony's brief attempt to exploit United Artist icons for a house franchise, while they still owned the rights, while selling the cartoon Panther icon to their female audience because, y'know, pink.

With Spidey currently going great guns and MIB:I coming this summer, they’re actually in pretty good shape. Hotel Transylvania 4 was just dated, too, and they have more Angry Birds, and Jumanji as you say. I just don’t get the "Columbia has a dearth of franchises talk". I’m more concerned for Universal at this point, which has Jurassic and Illumination...and...er...?

And their Dark Universe of Monsters...oh, wait, sorry, gotta update that. Looks like More Fast & Furious is all they've got left.

As for Sony, the animated Spidey is going great guns, while "Venom" got lucky in an empty October despite howling worst-of-year reviews, "Morbius" should be so lucky, and just about every other "Spider-tantrum" project ("Silver & Black") to exploit unused/unsold characters that Disney didn't own has already been axed.
Oh, and the GB remake was supposed to start a "new crossover universe" with their other sci/fantasy titles (MIB, Goosebumps), but looks like someone pulled the two of clubs out from underneath the house of cards.

Warners has a huge bunch of titles, too, though their handling of them has been hamfisted Of late to say the least. Obviously, of their big three of DC, Wizards and Middle Earth, only Wizards has been the ongoing success, though there is hope for the new direction DC is taking (is it all connected? Does it matter anymore? Does anyone care?),

They care about Wonder Woman, and that's pretty much ALL Warner is doing with DC from here on in. Oh, and Batgirl, Supergirl, and other heroes for which Y-chromosomed fans need not apply.

Oh, and I'd double check those figures on Wizardry's "success" with Johnny Depp, although it wasn't 100% his fault the sequel fizzled.
Point is, after getting that Harry/LOTR perfect-storm in '01, Warner has been spoiled with the luck of having at least two successful franchises that were already written, and already in assembly-line production by the filmmakers to deliver one a year on schedule for the next foreseeable three to seven years. When those ended, they tried to jumpstart new ones, those didn't take, and now Old Warner Hubbard, who believed that Hollywood could now plan their movies five years in advance and was "free" from ever having to deal with nasty selfish spec-screenwriters again, is discovering a cupboard increasingly bare for old movies they can jumpstart by themselves.

Looks like Lego has fizzled out, at least for now, but that was kind of anticipated once they tried to do an Iger and shove out extra Lego spinoffs at too fast a rate...Batman *and* Ninjas between the main movies? Too much, too fast and, from what Ninjago looked like, not good enough, so by the time of Lego 2, it was a case of feeling a bit Solo'd out. But that will bounce back...and big...come Christmas, when a "worth the wait" break between releases will prove the adage that you really can have too much of a good thing.

Lego Batman was only responding to the fact that half to 2/3 of the then raging cult-love for the "Cruelly Oscar-snubbed!" Lego Movie was from Will Arnett's character, and a solo movie got all the "Dark-nesss" out of fans' systems.
As for Lego Ninjago, apparently that was Warner marketing a Cartoon Network cable series I only found out about after the movie came out...And I suspect I wasn't the only one. But it didn't have Batman in it, so who cared?

[Daniel]

Joe Dante is consulting!

A lot of people think Gremlins when they think "Joe Dante," and now they're doing an animated series.

Joe Dante: Yeah, I'm consulting on it.

Oh, fantastic! I was wondering about that. So you are involved creatively?

Joe Dante: It's good. It's going to be good, yeah. I'm very pleased with the way it's going.

Do you think it will be kind of the same spirit of the original movie? As far as being family friendly, but a little darker?

Joe Dante: It's a prequel. It goes back to the character Mr. Wing when he was a boy, and when he first discovered the Mogwai. It's set in China in the ’20s, and it's animated and it's very big in the sense that if you tried to shoot it as a theatrical film, it would be outrageously expensive. But in animation, you kind of get away with almost anything you can think of. And it's probably not going to be done until 2021 or maybe the end of 2020. It's for HBO Max, a new streaming variant of HBO.

Sounds promising.

[gaastra]

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/hbo-ma ... 234817406/

[Ben]

Yeah, I know. Everybody's gotta story to tell. But nobody's got a story like this one... Nobody...

[Daniel]

Voice cast. Aw, no Howie Mandel.