‘Gremlins’ Director Says Warner Bros. ‘Hated’ the Christmas Scene and Urged Theaters to Cut It Out

“Gremlins” director Joe Dante is spilling some secrets 40 years after the film’s release, including revealing the lengths to which studio Warner Bros. went to have one scene cut out.

Dante told Total Film that the 1984 film proved to be contentious amongst studio executives for one specific scene where Kate (Phoebe Cates) tells Billy (Zack Galligan) that she hates Christmas because her father died during the season. Well, WB execs “hated” that.

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“[The scene] encapsulated the whole ethos of the picture,” Dante said. “There’s a duality of humor and horror but Warner Bros. just hated it.”

However, the sequence still stayed in the final edit in part due to producer Steven Spielberg siding with Dante. Even that endorsement didn’t stop the suits.

“I heard after it was out they were sending instructions to projectionists to see if they could cut it, which thankfully didn’t happen,” Dante said.

Chris Columbus penned the script.

Dante went on to direct sequel “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” and later consult on Max animated series, “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.” He’s still protective of the franchise. Dante told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2022 that “The Mandalorian” was “shamelessly” modeling Baby Yoda off of “Gremlins” character Gizmo, voiced by Howie Mandel.

“I think the longevity of [the films] is really key to this one character [Gizmo], who is essentially like a baby,” Dante said. “Which brings me, of course, to the subject of Baby Yoda, who is completely stolen and is just out-and-out copied. Shamelessly, I would think.”

When “Gremlins” was rumored to be up for a reboot in 2014, Dante told IndieWire that any revival would be “tricky.” A new filmmaker would have to “jump through two hurdles to get your idea approved,” he said.

“It’s something that we hear about every six months for the past five to ten years,” Dante said. “I know there have been many attempts to do it. I know a lot of very well-known people have come up with ideas for another ‘Gremlins’ movie and not of them have gone. I do know, however, that there’s a script being written now and the tricky thing is that I’m not sure that the people making the movie now understand what the original appeal was of the first movie, which was not beloved by the studio until it started making money.”

Dante added, “When they started making a sequel, they didn’t understand what we had done on the original to make it successful,. So they hired me to come back and make the sequel. Because nobody understood it. So it will be very interesting to see what they come up with.”

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