In a new interview with The Direct’s Jeff Ewing, producer Brendan Hay reveals that the beloved Gremlins: The Wild Batch series nearly had a lycanthrope appearance.
The Wild Batch, technically Season 2 of the series, follows Gizmo, Sam, and Elle as they move from Shanghai to San Francisco and track down a new brood of evil Mogwai.
At WonderCon, The Direct spoke with Brendan Hay (executive producer), Joe Dante (consulting producer on series; director of the Gremlins films) John Glover (Guest voice on the series; played “Daniel Clamp” in Gremlins 2), Tze Chun (showrunner), and Sherri Chung (composer).
Season 2 Almost Featured a Werewolf Gremlin
"I Don't Think There's Ever Been a Were-Gremlin!"
Joe Dante is a legend in horror circles, not least of which for directing a pair of all-time horror comedies in Gremlins and Gremlins: The New Batch.
That isn’t his only major contribution to monster movie canon, however, thanks to his taking the helm of the excellent 1981 werewolf picture The Howling. Fans of his work never thought they’d see the two worlds cross. But with the success of Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai and its second season, The Wild Batch, the sky is clearly the limit on incorporating new beasts in Gizmo’s orbit.
- The Direct: "It's a real pleasure to talk to you all. I mean, the original two films are horror-comedy classics... There's such a mythological blank check [with this show], and we've seen that a lot in Season 2, how you can expand the world and the world-building. What is the next thing on your list if you get to continue the stories further? And also, Joe, is there a way we might sneak in a The Howling Werewolf moment?"
Joe Dante: I don't think there's ever been a were-gremlin! Unexplored area.
Brendan Hay: It didn't make it, but there was definitely a werewolf episode idea for Season 2 that we didn't get to.
Joe Dante: So maybe Season 3, if there is a Season 3.
Brendan Hay: That would be our chance. Otherwise, we know eventually we want to get to New York, and we have ideas of whenever we would get to New York, of what New York in the 30s or 40s might give us.
- The Direct: "If you could do anything in a follow-up season that you weren't able to do in these two if you had a complete blank check, what would you do?"
Brendan Hay: World War Two with Gremlins.
Joe Dante: Yeah, because that's the beginning of the mythos, you know, is that the gremlins in World War Two were supposedly sabotaging planes. It's a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Brendan Hay: Yeah, so I would honestly want to see our Mogwai involved in World War Two.
- The Direct: "I feel like there's clearly been a lot of success in finding the tone for both of these seasons. What was the secret to diving into that world and finding that balance again?"
Brendan Hay: I mean, for us, it really was just looking to that of two things. One, trying to make sure that the laughs were always genuinely funny, the scares were always genuinely scary, and as long as you had those both, somehow it still worked.
But the other thing we looked at as like a counterpart was actually a lot of Chinese stories. The jumping of tones was something that Tse very quickly pointed out as like, 'Oh, that's true in all of Stephen Chow's movies,' or things like that.
So, that just became another place for us, with Joe's stuff and that, looking to those as kind of our guiding lights, and seeing how they would transition through a scene, or just trying to capture that magic.
- The Direct: "I'll do what I can. Joe and John, it was so nice to see that you're reuniting for this project in the series. What was it like to collaborate again?"
Joe Dante: Well, we didn't really collaborate. I was in [...] It was during COVID, and he was doing his voiceover by himself on video. It was a Zoom thing, so my contribution was simply said, 'you guys have get to the [...] John Glover.'
John Glover: And that was another thing, that I wanted to come to see Joe because I've not seen him for years. So here's Joe!
Joe Dante: People think that people in Hollywood all live next door to each other, but that's not the case. Very seldom, when you work for somebody, do you really see them again unless you work together.
Tze Chun Reveals Hopes for Season 3 and Beyond
"If We Can Get 10 Seasons, I Guarantee We'll Go to Space."
- The Direct: "First, I really, really love the series. I love the emphasis on Chinese mythology. And then it's also evolving as the characters, you know, move to the States. It's kind of a sky's the limit situation. If you get more seasons, if you get more space to grow the world, where would you like to go next?"
Tze Chun: You know those what's so fun about the show is that you always get to kind of see things that are new to our characters, but at the same time, evil Mogwai are always chasing them, and so there's kind of the comfort of like, 'okay, well, this is the situation, there's always going to be the evil Mogwai because they come from Gizmo.'
At the same time, you're going to expose those characters to different cultures. I mean, I would love to go to Japan, India, you know, Viking legends. If we can get 10 seasons, I guarantee we'll go to space.
- The Direct: "I'm going to hold you to that. So, the mythological creatures—I'm a big fan of folklore, and they're always so beautifully rendered. If you had a blank check for what you could include next, is there anything that you really would love to make you haven't been able to do yet?"
Tze Chun: Oh, wow, that's a really hard one. There are just so many. I mean, every culture has their own creation myths, spirits, and creatures that populate the world, and what has been really nice is seeing our teams take on that.
I'm really excited. In terms of Season 1, it was so great to see their take on Chinese creatures and spirits Season 2, second half, which is coming out April 10, you'll really get to see their take on what do the creatures, what do the tall tales, what do the fables from the Wild West look like when they're transported into our world?
Sherri Chung & Tze Chung on Their Approach to Gremlins: The Wild Batch
"I Think You Have to Approach Animation and Live Action In Different Ways
- The Direct: "Sherry, I loved your work in Kung Fu, I like it on the show as well. How do these two different projects, they're very different tones, how do you capture that difference, approach them differently, and how does that change what you do?"
Sherri Chung: Honestly, I think you have to approach animation and live action in different ways. I think storytelling in the music is a bit more dominant in animation, maybe not every single animation, but certainly in something like this where you don't have...
Not everything is completely conveyed on screen in the animation. It's just a different kind of storytelling, but I do think some of the things remain the same. It's thematic, connecting with the character, and it's really trying to take an audience somewhere.
And I feel, as a music, I feel like it's part of the writing team. It's not part of the sound department, it's part of the writing team. It's very 'last to the party,' but we try to tie it all in together. And I see that the two shows...
Something that I've mentioned before about Tze and Brennan's direction on this is really being able to lean into the Chinese culture of it, and both instrumentationally and even harmonically and melodically, just kind of being able to lean into those elements of it, and not needing to to steer away or mute it or sort of round it out.
And Kung Fu needed to be that type of [...]. There's a different formula for that kind of writing. So you, we do have act outs, you do freeze frame on someone before going to black, so you do have to use music in a different way to make sure the audience comes back from a commercial.
- The Direct: "This question applies to both of you equally because, for the original two films, I mean, many of us grew up with it—I certainly did—the score's iconic, the humor, the design, every aspect of it is so memorable. How does that change how you both approach finding new ways to make it fresh and adapt a different story in that world?"
Tze Chun: I think those movies gave us a lot of strength and leverage whenever people were like, 'well, this is too scary, this is too weird.' Gremlins worked, and this is Gremlins, so we got to just lean into the tone that people really expect from Gremlins.
And even something like Elle's really dark monologue in Season 1. I think that we feel like our partners really supported us in terms of, 'let's do what they did in 'Gremlins,' let's do it animated, and try to keep it as weird as possible.
Sherri Chung: I was gonna say that for me, from my point of view, it's always all in the stories: it's what was written, it's what the actors did. The inspiration is always there. Doing something that's fighting that it would be not only a disservice, but would just, you know, an audience would sense that even if you know something.
So, keeping it fresh and new is like when the stories are fresh and new, which they always are, and then I can do my job
- The Direct: "One of the things that makes the originals so interesting is that it's very difficult to land a great horror comedy. The tones can be opposite. It's difficult to be brilliant, and I feel like you've really captured a lot of the energy of the originals. What's your approach to the comedic moments and trying to find a fresh route, but keeping it in the same vein so that fans connect with it in a similar way?"
Tze Chun: I think that one of the things we found in the writer's room was that the comedy actually allows us to do more with the horror because we can really push it to the brink and then kind of let the steam out a little bit with the comedy.
There's also something inherently comedic about kids who are just up against these insane monsters and spirits, and so the fun slapstick of that was something that we tried to capture. And also throughout it, that's just Gizmo.
Gizmo is so cute, you know, there's always one story happening, and Gizmo is going through his other story. That's at ground level, and that kind of interplay was something that we really loved looking at in the writer's room.
The full interviews can be watched here:
Gremlins: The Wild Batch is streaming on Max.
