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Background

The original Gremlins was a financial success, and Warner Bros. asked its director Joe Dante to make a sequel straight away. Dante declined, because he saw Gremlins as having a proper ending, and thus a sequel would only be meant to be profitable. Moreover, the original film was a taxing experience for Dante, and he wanted to move on. Work on Gremlins 2 proceeded without him, as the studio approached various directors and writers. Storylines considered included sending the gremlins to cities like Las Vegas or even the planet Mars. After these ideas fell through, the studio returned to Dante, who agreed to make the sequel after receiving the rare promise of having complete creative control over the movie; he also received a budget triple that of the original film’s. Dante later acknowledged that by this point too much time had passed between the films, thus possibly reducing Gremlins 2’s appeal.^[5]

The film was released in 1990, and as the filmmakers later noted, this was a time when cable television, genetics and frozen yogurt were becoming more common and influential.^{[citation needed]} This all left a mark on Gremlins 2, as Clamp’s media empire ran many cable television channels. Gremlins 2 actually exaggerated what could be seen on cable television at the time, although as the filmmakers noted in 2002, that humour might be lost on present-day audiences. Cable television later grew to provide that type of variety. Genetics in 1990 is reflected in the laboratory seen in Gremlins 2, and frozen yogurt is what the mogwais eat after midnight.^[3]

[edit] Plotting

With more control over the film, Dante engineered a project that he later referred to as “one of the more unconventional studio pictures, ever.” Dante included some material that he believed Warner Bros. would not have allowed had they not wanted a sequel to Gremlins. Allowed to break a number of rules in filmmaking, he also later claimed it was the film into which he had put the most of his personal influence. Dante imagined Gremlins 2 as a satire of Gremlins and sequels in general. Another basic description of Gremlins 2 was that, as Dante said, an hour into the film it becomes “extremely cartoony.”^[3]

The recommended screenwriter, Charlie Haas, brought to the project the basic storyline of moving the gremlins to New York City, and he also imagined a corporate head (the character Clamp) being Billy’s boss and at the center of the new disaster. When the Warner Bros. executives grew concerned about the expense of portraying the gremlins attacking an entire city, Haas came up with the idea of confining the action within Daniel Clamp’s “smart building”. Haas also included a great deal of material in his screenplay that proved too elaborate to produce, including having a cow–hamster hybrid running on a treadmill in the laboratory.^[3]

In keeping with Dante’s desires to satirize the original film, the sequel has some meta-references and self-referential humor. These include a cameo appearance by film critic Leonard Maltin. He holds up a copy of the original Gremlins video and denounces it, just as he had in reality.^{[citation needed]} However, his rant is cut short when gremlins pounce on him. Partly for this scene, one academic called Dante “one of contemporary cinema’s great pranksters.”^[6]

Additionally, when Billy is trying to explain the safety precautions regarding the mogwai to staff in the building, the staff find them quite absurd and interrogate Billy on the application of the rules. This scene originates from the fact that the filmmakers themselves saw the rules as irrational, and some questions in the scene were based upon queries raised by fans of the original film.^[3]

At one point in the film, Dante attempted to involve his audience in the story by making it seem as if the gremlins had taken over whatever theatre Gremlins 2 would be screened in. The film seems to be broken by the gremlins, who then engage in shadow puppetry over a white screen. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan then appears in a cameo appearance and intimidates the gremlins into running the rest of Gremlins 2; this joke was inspired by a similar stunt in William Castle’s film The Tingler (1959). The studio feared people might really leave the theater if they thought the film had broken. Dante thus secured the inclusion of the sequence by assembling some people for a preview of the film. When the scene was shown, the real-life audience found it enjoyable and stayed in the theatre. Dante later described this scene as one of the most widely enjoyed jokes in Gremlins 2. When Gremlins 2 made its debut on home video, the filmmakers altered the scene, to make it seem as if VCRs had been broken by the gremlins. This time actor John Wayne forces the gremlins into continuing the film, although voice impersonation was needed since Wayne had been dead since 1979.^[3] Notably, a clip from Falling Hare, a film released in 1943 featuring Bugs Bunny and a gremlin, appears in this version.

The original version of the film was longer, but executive producer Steven Spielberg claimed there were too many gremlins, and several scenes were cut as a result. One deleted scene portrayed three of the main gremlins, Daffy, Lenny and George, sneaking into television host Grandpa Fred’s studio and “helping” him host, which worked because Grandpa Fred’s show was supposed to be scary.^[4]