The lovable fluffy creatures that turn into evil fanged monsters if fed after midnight were supposed to see a Blu-ray release in 2007 and then in 2008, only to be unceremoniously canceled. Now director Joe Dante, while on the set of 'The Hole,' has confirmed that he and production company Amblin Entertainment are working on the remasters of both movies, and that they will be released on Blu-ray, although they will miss the intended summer date.
The reason Dante gives for the delay of '
Gremlins' is that Amblin Entertainment looked at the master for the movie, believed that they could "do better than this" and decided to do them over.
Indeed, the filmmaker has nothing but praise for the production company founded by Steven Spielberg and its effort to see that his movies are done justice. "One thing about Amblin is that they are extremely filmmaker-friendly," says Dante. "When your movie is put out on any sort of video system, they bring you in and you check it out, they get your opinion. They color correct it, they run things for you. They are very, very good about that. We've been involved quite a lot."
The Blu-ray discs will probably feature the same material from the DVD special editions, including commentaries, featurettes and deleted scenes. Dante is also hoping to include a funny and very competent
YouTube fan film, made a year ago by Sacha Feiner, a special effects creator and 'Gremlins' aficionado from Belgium. In the short, the gremlins take a video-on-demand device and invade movies such as '
The Exorcist', '
Batman', '
Raiders of the Lost Ark', '
The Goonies', and 'The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.' However, rights issues might make that impossible.
Thanks to forum member redtornado for posting this news on the
forum.