10 Movie Sequels That Completely Flipped The Original
3. Gremlins 2 Threw Out Scares For Laughs
When Joe Dante finally got around to putting together a sequel to his 1984 horror comedy megahit, it’s fair to say that the market was fairly well flooded with Gremlins clones. The multiplexes had been graced with enough Ghoulies, Critters, Munchies, and Hobgoblins to last more than a lifetime, to say nothing of flicks like Troll and Spookies which re-arranged their marketing campaigns to trick viewers into thinking they were getting yet another knock off of Dante’s dark original.
It was time for a change, and as Dante explained on an episode of popular podcast Chapo Trap House, the best opportunity to do an original take on Gremlins was to drop the dark morality tale logic which drove the first film in favour of a far lighter, wackier tone, with the titular monsters wreaking havoc in New York City whilst the script mocked everything from Donald Trump and Ted Turner to cable news networks to critics of the first film itself.
As a result Gremlins 2: The New Batch flopped at the box office but won over legions of fans on home video, and the anarchic comedy it championed went on to define American film and television throughout the nineties in the form of everything from small screen successes such as Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, to Space Jam, to the blockbuster Scary Movie franchise.