What an exciting week for Gremlins fans of all ages!
We get a brand new Mountain Dew Zero commercial featuring Billy Peltzer, Gizmo, and some new characters. Then the next day the primary voice cast for Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai is announced. Now today, Deadline reports that HBOMax has already signed on for a second season of the animated series!
There is undoubtedly a huge amount of hype here for a 30-year-dormant series, so this is quite interesting to see unfold. We still don’t have a trailer, release date, or any other information for the animated series by showrunner Tze Chun, but I have a feeling that HBOMax may want to capitalize on this hype and will rush some kind of information out to keep fans talking.
There is a lot of buzz and debate about Gizmo being voiced by A.J LoCascio in the series rather than by Howie Mandel (who returned for the Mountain Dew commercial) but the fact is we don’t know why Mandel isn’t returning. We don’t know if he was asked or was even interested in the role. If we get any information, we will update you ASAP.
It seems Gremlins has been continually debated by those who love the films, even back when the first films released. The dramatic change from Chris Walas’ designs to Rick Baker between films was a shock to many, but I found it exciting as it allowed a greater range of expression on the puppets. Now the big debate is CGI or practical. I feel the best way to go, if there were a new Gremlins film, would be to use practical effects enhanced with CGI. We haven’t even seen the art style used in Secrets Of The Mogwai yet, so the reception to this series will likely dictate the direction they take with any future movies.
I personally am just happy to see all this new Gremlins content and hope that a new generation of fans will get to enjoy it in a similar way that we did growing up.
