Gremlins Animated Series In Development
Gremlins are great, and there aren’t enough minutes of screentime devoted to them. Every now and then we hear about a Gremlins 3 movie in development, but it never goes anywhere. Which is why we’re thrilled with the announcement from Variety that Warner Bros is developing a Gremlins TV series. We’ll take it!
The downside is that we won’t get to find out what Billy and Kate are up to because the proposed series is a prequel. It would be about the young adventures of Mr. Wing, Gizmo’s original caretaker, as he travels with his companion Mogwai around the world. The second downside is that this series is meant for WarnerMedia, the upcoming exclusive streaming service for WB properties (they’re also considering yanking Friends from Netflix and putting it on this).
We have mixed feelings about every single major studio and corporation launching their own streaming service. On the one hand, no mortal human can possibly keep up with them all, and no human earning less than six figures can afford them all. On the other hand, the fact that these new services must please their audiences and prove buzzworthy from Minute One means we’re about to get a ton of cool stuff we would ordinarily not see were the choices limited to network or cable.
But…why the rush? Because it’s now or never. Remember when establishing your own successful e-business was as easy as creating a website? (Maybe you don’t….it was the late 90s, young’uns.) Over time, consumers gravitated toward a handful of brands and they became monoliths. Competing with the Amazon of 2000 was much easier than competing with the Amazon of today. It’s easier to get your foot in the door of a young industry, and streaming is very young.
All the studios know the time to strike is NOW, or they risk being left behind. In short: there’s no stopping the avalanche of streaming services, exclusive licenses, and paywalled subscriptions that are about to overwhelm consumers into the next decade. But hey, Gremlins cartoon!