Gremlins: The Wild Batch(akaGremlins: Secrets of the Mogwaiseason 2) continues the journey of a young Sam Wing, inching the character closer to the Mr. Wing audiences first met in 1984’sGremlins. The new season brings audiences closer to that film as well, making the jump from Shanghai to San Francisco for a story that continues to explore the world of the Mogwai while also incorporating myths and legends from American history. As with the first season,Gremlins: The Wild Batchstars Izaac Wang as Sam Wing, Gabrielle Nevah as his resourceful friend Elle, and A.J. LoCascio as Gizmo (and the other Gremlins as well).
This animated take on theGremlinsfranchise has always felt true to the films that inspired it, which is no doubt thanks in large part to people like showrunner and executive producer Tze Chun, executive producer Brendan Hay, and consulting producer Joe Dante. To createGremlins: The Wild Batch, Chun drew on the story of his grandfather’s journey to America, Hay leveraged an impressive resume’s worth of animation experience, and Dante—the director of the originalGremlinsfilms—helped ensure the season was one originalGremlinsfans can enjoy. Together with theGremlins: The Wild Batchvoice cast, the show’s creatives have leaned into the humor, hijinks, and heart that has made the franchise so beloved by so many.
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Screen Rantinterviewed Tze Chun, Brendan Hay, and Joe Dante about following upGremlins: Secrets of the Mogwaiwith a new season that expands on the first in meaningful ways. The trio also discussed the casting ofBarbiestar Simu Liuand other franchise newcomers in exciting guest roles. Read on to hear their thoughts on those subjects and more beforeGremlins: The Wild Batchpremieres October 3 on Max.
Tze Chun Talks Making Gremlins: The Wild Batch Both Fantastical & Personal
The Season Also Connects Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai And The Original Movie
Screen Rant: Tze, I got to speak to Ming-Na Wen and James Hong who told me about how much they could relate to the story of the Wing family coming to America. I know this comes from a personal place for you as well. This is such a fantastical world, but how did you go about kind of grounding that story in a way that felt personal and relatable?
Tze Chun: I think that’s something we really endeavored to do in the writer’s room. You want to create set pieces and spectacle and fun and scares and laughter, but you also want to ground it in something really emotional—and maybe something that’s almost surprisingly emotional for a show that’s a family show. In season two, we were really trying to figure out, “What is a weird thing for Gizmo? What is a really emotional, heartbreaking thing for Elle, [and] also for Sam?” Sam is coming to America for the first time. His parents are coming to America. This is really the connective tissue between the first season and Joe’s movies where Mr. Wing is living in the US.
For me, my grandfather came over when he was around Sam’s age, at around this time period, so it was really interesting to research the time period. Obviously, we’re making a fantasy, epic, crazy animated show, but at the same time, being able to look at the environments that my grandfather would’ve seen, and walk around San Francisco Chinatown… there was something really magical about that for me and I’m sure for a number of our crew who are also Asian American.
Joe Dante Reveals The Ambitious Nature Of Gremlins: The Wild Batch
“It Takes More Chances”
Joe, the title of the season feels like a callback toGremlins 2: The New Batch. I remember the last time I talked to you, you were talking about being excited to get away with making a movie that weird. I think those were your words.
Joe Dante: I’m excited to get away with making any movie.
Fair enough! Were there ways that you wanted the second Gremlins movie to influence this season?
Joe Dante: Not in particular, because the first time I met the group—and not just Brendan and Tze, but the whole overarching group of writers, and there’s a lot of designers and artists and animators—I was taken with their affection for the first movie and the second movie. And [it’s] the idea of making something that’s of its own and then branching out to do a sequel that isn’t a repeat of the first time you did it.
I think everybody was pretty much on board with the idea of, “We love the first season, but we don’t need the first season, part two. We need another season,” which is why it has a different title. It has a different aspect than the first one did, and it takes more chances now that we’ve established who the characters are, where they are, and where they’re going. And, we don’t have to necessarily use legends and myths from any particular culture. Now we’ve gone to the Wild West, or we can have Native American culture. We can have all sorts of other ways of getting into the supernatural.
It’s a natural outgrowth, to me, of the idea of making a sequel that doesn’t just try to top the original—it tries to reinterpret it. That’s kind of what I tried to do with the sequel of the movie, and I think that’s the way this season is working.
Brendan Hay Discusses Casting Will Forte & Simu Liu
“This Is The One Show I’ve Ever Been On Where We Got Will Forte”
Brendan, I’m always so excited by a great voice cast, and this season has really fantastic newcomers. You have Simu Liu, I want Will Forte in everything I watch, [and] I know you have John Glover. I’m sure all of these scripts are written before casting is finalized, but how much are you all inspired to change a character or dialogue once you find out who’s going to be voicing the role?
Brendan Hay: A little bit. A lot of it is planned and written ahead of time. Because of animation, sometimes the nature of the beast [is] you can’t change things too much, but being able to tailor a script does happen and does help. Usually, there’s so much more rewriting and tailoring that’s needed, [but] we have been incredibly lucky. In the writers’ room, it’d be like, “For the warden, it’d be great to get a Will Forte type.” So, you write it with Will Forte in mind. This is the one show I’ve ever been on where we got Will Forte.
Or Simu Liu—it was like, “Man, Chang has to be somebody super cool like Simu Liu. Let’s write it with a Simu Liu type in mind, knowing we don’t know who it’ll be,” and then it’s just him. Thankfully, the one set of actors we actually got to record together in season two was Ronnie Chieng and Jimmy O. Yang as the Ice Dragons. I’d say that it’s probably the one sequence in the show where they improv’d and riffed so much during their record together that we actually were like, “Let’s open this up a little bit and see what we can add that maybe wasn’t originally planned for.”
Tze Chun Details How The Wild Batch’s New Mythological Creatures Were Chosen
Tze, I saw an interview with you where you were talking about how some American mythology was getting into the season, and Joe just [touched on that as well]. How did you kind of go about choosing which myths to include, and is there anything you can say about what we’ll see from this continent?
Tze Chun: When we [went] about breaking the season, we were very lucky to have many whiteboards in the writer’s room, and there was one that says “Wishlist of creatures and spirits,” and the other one is, “Wishlist for Mogwai variants.” We really wanted to do, in season two, a “greatest hits” of spirits and creatures from the American West, whether that’s maybe some creatures and spirits that you hadn’t heard about, or our unique take on tall tales that are in the canon and people have heard about since they were little.
What’s Next For The Gremlins Franchise?
Hay Pitches “10 More Seasons” Of The Animated Series
Ming-Na pitched me a third season of this series where they’re running away from Grandpa’s gambling debt, based on something from James Hong’s own life. There have been a lot of articles about the possibility of a thirdGremlinsmovie. What does the ideal future of this franchise look like?
Brendan Hay: I’ll keep it very selfish and personal. My ideal future is like 10 more seasons of this show. Let’s have Sam grow up with Izaac. Let’s have Elle grow up with Gabrielle. [Let’s] just keep seeing these characters as they go decade to decade until we eventually hook up with Joe’s original film.
Joe Dante: Of course, we’ll all be dead by that time.
Brendan Hay: Yeah. That’s fine.
About Gremlins: The Wild Batch
Taking place one year after the events of season one, Gremlins: The Wild Batch follows Gizmo, Sam, and Elle as they travel from their home in Shanghai to San Francisco, bringing even more magic, mystery and Mogwai mayhem. Hot on the trail of a new brood of evil Mogwai, our heroes journey deep into the American West, coming up against new supernatural creatures and picking up a few mysterious characters along the way.
Check back for our otherGremlins: The Wild Batchinterviews
Gremlins
Cast
Gremlins is an animated television series that serves as a prequel to the classic 1984 movie Gremlins. Starring Izaac Wang as Sam Wing, the show explores Gizmo’s origins before the events of the first movie.
