Remember, don't get them wet and never feed them after midnight! Today Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Television released a first-look image for the upcoming animated Gremlins prequel series and announced that it would be making its debut at the Annecy International Animation Festival this June. This gives fans hope that Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai will be coming to general audiences not long after.
The original 1984 film followed the story of a young man who is gifted a pet Mogwai from his father but gets more than he bargained for when the Mogwai turns out to be much more than a cute little animal. The new animated series will tell the story of how Mr. Wing, who owns the shop where the Mogwai were purchased in the original movie, first met the adorable and mysterious creatures. The series will take place in 1920s Shanghai and is said to feature other animals and spirits found in Chinese folklore.
In the first look image, we get to see an animated Gizmo. The little guy was already cute in live-action, but he just got a lot more adorable. In the image, we see Gizmo jumping through the air, teasing that the show will fully take advantage of the animation medium. Where the original film was limited by what the puppets at the time could do, this animated show is going to be able to show a much more physical Gizmo and other Mowgli and Gremlins too. Additionally, the background teases the new setting of 1920s Shanghai, with some architecture unique to the area and time.
While when the screening will be taking place at the festival is currently unannounced, it has been said that there will be Q&A held afterward. Executive producers on the series Tze Chun and Brendan Hay — along with Joe Dante, who directed the original 1984 film and has served as a consulting producer on the new series — will answer questions from the audience. Giving fans hope that they might drop the official release date during that conversation. All that we know so far is that Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai will eventually be streaming on HBO Max.
Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai has been produced by Amblin Television in association with Warner Bros. Animation. Chun served on the series as showrunner and executive producer, with Hay, Sam Register, Darryl Frank, and Justin Falvey rounding out the other executive producers on the series. Dan Krall served as a supervising producer.
Stay tuned to Collider for any coming news on this series. Check out the full first-look image and read the full synopsis for Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai below:
In Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, we travel back to 1920s Shanghai to reveal the story of how 10-year-old Sam Wing (future shop owner Mr. Wing in the 1984 movie) met the young Mogwai called Gizmo. Along with a teenage street thief named Elle, Sam and Gizmo take a perilous journey through the Chinese countryside, encountering, and sometimes battling, colorful monsters and spirits from Chinese folklore. On their quest to return Gizmo to his family and uncover a legendary treasure, they are pursued by a power-hungry industrialist and his growing army of evil Gremlins.