By Anthony Lund
Gremlins may be an iconic family Christmas movie, but things could have been very different with some bloodthirsty, violent murders.
Summary
- Gremlins was originally scripted to include severed heads and gory B-movie horror.
- The original script was much darker and violent, but was toned down and changed due in part to technical limitations.
- Despite challenges and intense scenes, the team behind Gremlins pushed through to create a timeless classic loved by audiences.
Festive monster movie Gremlins celebrates its 40th anniversary this month, and director Joe Dante recently discussed the movie in the latest edition of Total Film Magazine. As well as sharing the story of how the studio “didn’t get” the Steven Spielberg-produced movie when it was originally presented to them, Dante also revealed how the film was originally planned to be a gory R-rated B-movie. Dante began:
“[Warner Bros.] just didn’t get it. They thought Gremlins doing stuff like blowing their nose on the curtains was disgusting. At one point they say, ‘The only think wrong with this movie is that it’s got too many Gremlins in it.’ Spieldberg said, ‘Well, we can cut out the Gremlins and call it People but nobody’s gonna see it…’”
Gremlins
PG
Comedy
Fantasy
Horror
Where to Watch
*Availability in US
- stream
- rent
- buy
Not available
- Release Date
- June 7, 1984
- Director
- Joe Dante
- Cast
- Hoyt Axton , John Louie , Keye Luke , Don Steele , Susan Burgess , Scott Brady
- Runtime
- 102
- Main Genre
- Comedy
- Writers
- Chris Columbus
- Tagline
- Don't get him wet, keep him out of bright light, and never feed him after midnight.
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the sight of some mean, green little monsters running amok through the small town of Kingston Falls, and singing along to the soundtrack of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. However, while Gremlins has become a festive, mostly family-friendly, classic, it could have been a very different story if Chris Columbus’ original script had been used for the movie. Dante noted:
“My Roger Corman beginnings marked me as a B-picture director and since Spielberg’s view was that this was going to be a B-horror movie, I was judged appropriate for the role. Chris Columbus’ original draft was intended to be a B-horror movie, which is what Steven wanted to do as his first Amblin production, because it was a safe bet.”
Gremlins producer Michael Finnell explained how that first draft was dramatically different from the version that would end up being filmed, and had some much more horrific moments that Dante believes would have left it “languishing on the shelves.” Finnell said:
“It was originally much more violent, which was fine with us, but the other problem was that it was virtually impossible to produce with the technology that existed at that time. It was pretty gruesome. Billy’s mother got her head chopped off and it bounced down the stairs, and the Gremlins ate the dog. It was really grizzly, like many horror movies of that period were.”
Gremlins Changed Due to Technical Limitations of the Time
It is hard to knock the invention and creativity that Dante, Finnell, Spielberg and the rest of the production team put into making sure Gremlins not only worked, but still stands up today when it comes to its creature effects. Although Spielberg helped to drive scripting changes to remove some of the more horrific elements, even then there were several sequences that pushed the team to their limits. Finnell said:
“The original script had Gremlins running around in the snow and we couldn’t do that; there was no such thing as CGI back in 1983. We had to change the screenplay into something we could actually make.”
Those changes certainly didn’t mean the making of Gremlins was any easier, as the complex and chaotic tavern scene proved. The scene, which happens in the final third of the movie and sees Phoebe Cates’ Kate serving drinks to an unruly mob of little critters, was so challenging that Dante had to completely shut down the production on the movie to work out how to create the scene. Dante explained:
“[It allowed us to] fix puppets and plan the scenes with just the Gremlins, one of which was the bar scene – which, by the way, is the bar from The Shootist. We brought Phoebe back and show just the stuff in the bar for a week. We left the rough cut in [previews] to see what worked with audiences and kept the parts we thought worked best. It was exhausting but a lot of fun.”
Related
Every Pop Culture Reference in Gremlins
Gremlins is an iconic Christmas-themed movie and a tribute to cinema, delivering many exciting references to the movies and artists that inspired it.
While many of the issues faced by Gremlins would now be solved with a click of a mouse, in 1983 the production on the movie had no choice other than to work through its challenges with real props and a live-action creative process. From the popularity of the movie 40 years later, it is clear that the effort was well worth it to end up with an almost perfect movie.
Gremlins is currently streaming on Fubo, and available to purchase/rent from usual outlets.
