Chris Columbus gives update on Gremlins reboot, Goonies 2

Chris Columbus may be more known now for his directing work, on the likes of Home Alone, Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and Mrs. Doubtfire, but it was his writing that very much put him on the map in the 1980s. He penned Gremlins in 1984, and The Goonies in 1985, and he's thus involved in the planned reboot of the former, and The Goonies 2 as well.

Chatting to Collider, to promote his upcoming summer blockbuster Pixels, Columbus was asked firstly if he was working on the new Gremlins movie. "I am involved," he confirmed.

"When I finished Gremlins, and the first Gremlins was released, I was asked to direct the sequel, and I said there was nowhere else to go. This is before the pre-crazy franchise era of Hollywood when everything is a franchise."

He continued, adding that "30 years have passed. And I thought okay, we can do this, we can find a way not to remake the first movie, but to take those characters, and do something interesting. I realised from JJ [Abrams]'s other movies, when he did Star Trek, he has a sense of taking that sort of sense of nostalgia that we all want, and bringing it forward, like he brought Leonard Nimoy into the first Star Trek. That to me was why we connected to that."

Columbus also cited the example of seeing Han and Chewbecca in the latest Star Wars trailer, arguing "we want that feeling again, so I thought okay, it's cool, if we could pull it off, if we could create that feeling but deliver something new to the new audience, then maybe we could do a really terrific Gremlins reboot." Note the use of the word 'reboot' there too.

The film will be a mix of new and old characters it seems, and it's further down the line that the mooted sequel to The Goonies, that Columbus is also active in. "The Goonies is a much tougher nut to crack, for obvious reasons. We are in the thick of it now, trying to figure it out".

Thus far, Columbus, Richard Donner and Steven Spielberg haven't come up with a story for The Goonies 2 that they're happy with. "We're still searching, but we are searching very hard to try and make it work. But we're not going to let anybody down. If we don't feel it's right, and that's between Donner, Spielberg and myself, if we don't feel it's right, we're not gonna do it."

But do they want to do it? "Yes, completely.... it's something that we all would like to happen."

The full interview with Collider, and it's well worth checking out, is here.