Director Joe Dante has expressed his surprise that his film The Burbs is set to be turned into a TV show. More here.
Last month, Peacock commissioned a straight-to-series order for a TV adaptation of The Burbs, the 1989 dark comedy that starred Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher. Despite being a worthy film, it’s often eclipsed by other movies from the same era, not least because both Tom Hanks and director Joe Dante both scored bigger hits around the same time.
In fact, nobody seems to be more surprised about the news than Dante himself, with the Gremlins director telling The Hollywood Reporter that, “I think my actual comment was ‘how are they going to make a whole TV series out of that story?’ As opposed to ‘I want to be the one to do it.’”
The original film saw Hanks, Bruce Dern and Carrie Fisher situated in a perfect suburban neighborhood until some strange new neighbours move in. Tom Hanks’ character becomes convinced the family is hiding a dark secret. That’s all the plot you’re getting, as it’s worth discovering it for yourself.
Joe Dante’s recounting of his surprise at the announcement reflects the wider sense of peturbment that generally seems to exist around such remakes, which could just as easily taken inspiration from The Burbs and done something fresh. After all, The Burbs itself was a homage of sorts, drawing inspiration from Hitchcock flicks such as 1954’s Rear Window.
That’s not how Hollywood works these days though, and despite his evident surprise (and the fact that he wasn’t contacted by the creators of the new show), Dante was quick to wish the project well, adding: “Good luck to them. It’s kind a one-off story. [Still], it’s always nice when things have a shelf life.”
The filmmaker spoke in a more enthused tone about the release of Max’s second season of the animated show, Gremlins: The Wild Batch. When quizzed about the possibility of a third Gremlins film, Dante said “that’s up to the audience. The fact is that it’s too big a property for somebody not to make something”. But it’s been difficult for people to wrap their heads around”, ‘Exactly how are we going to do this?’ This series is a brilliant answer to that problem because it’s a prequel, and it’s animated, and it’s the perfect next step in the Gremlins saga”. Still, he added that people have struggled to crack it – not least because he made Gremlins 2 in part to stop a chance of a third film – hence the animated prequel approach.
At least the filmmaker seems enthusiastic about the way one of his films is being remade. Dante has lots of other classic titles in his filmography, including Explorers, The Howling and Small Soldiers, so something tells us that with Hollywood’s remake culture being what it is, he might have to deal with the process again at some point.