Chris Columbus updates on GREMLINS and THE GOONIES sequels

During a press tour to promote his upcoming movie Pixels (catch the trailer here), Chris Columbus, writer of the original Gremlins and The Goonies movies and in line to be producer on any potential sequels, sat down with Collider and also gave a brief update on where those projects are in the pipeline.

First up is very good news for Darryn Gremlins fans regarding a reboot of the franchise:

It is real. I am involved. When I finished Gremlins, and the first Gremlins was released, I was asked to write the sequel, and said there was no place else to go. Now this was before the pre-crazy-franchise-era of Hollywood where everything is a franchise. So obviously a long 30 years has passed, and I thought, “Okay, we can do this. We can actually find a way not to remake the first movie, but to take those characters and do something interesting.”

I realized, not from the Star Wars phase, but from J.J. [Abrams’] other movies, when he did Star Trek, he has a sense of taking that short of sense of nostalgia we all want and bringing it forward like he brought Leonard Nimoy into the first Star Trek. And that to me was why we connected to that and it was painfully obvious when we saw the Star Wars trailer recently that when you saw Han Solo and Chewbacca, we all had tears in our eyes, because we want that feeling again.

So I thought, okay, it’s cool. If we can pull it off—if we can create that feeling but deliver something new to the audience, then maybe we can do a really terrific Gremlins reboot.

It looks like he’s trying to forget Gremlins 2: The New Batch, pretty much like the rest of us do. Can you imagine the Gremlins themselves getting a make-over similar to the good one the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got? Yes, I said good because it was and they looked great in action.

When asked if they’d be sticking to the originals’ characters or starting fresh he was a bit more circumspect:

We’re going to incorporate some of it, but there are going to be some new characters as well. I can’t talk a lot about it. I’m sworn to secrecy.

Hopefully they’ll include a horrible little orange-haired one, I’m running out of things to tease Nick about. Just kidding, I’m not.

However when it comes to a The Goonies sequel the news is not as positive right now:

[There’s not] as much movement as there’s been on the Gremlins sequel. And Goonies is a much tougher nut to crack for obvious reasons. It actually comes up about every five years. We’re in the thick of it now trying to figure it out.

When asked to confirm rumours that original director Richard Donner had proposed an idea for the sequel that was being worked on he said:

We are still searching, but we are searching very hard to try and make it work. But we’re not going to let anybody down. If we don’t feel it’s right—that’s between Donner, Spielberg, and myself—if we don’t feel it’s right, we’re not going to do it.

That’s the right answer when it comes to making a sequel to a beloved classic from your childhood.

What do you think? Are you happy Gremlins is getting a reboot, and potentially The Goonies further down the line?

Last Updated: April 24, 2015