Warner Bros. Pictures has pushed the long-awaited third Gremlins feature from November 19, 2027, to October 6, 2028 — a delay of nearly a year that the studio confirmed Wednesday with an 11-second teaser and a simple caption: “10.6.28. Only In Theaters.”
Warner Bros. on X (formerly Twitter): “10.6.28. Only In Theaters. pic.twitter.com/kZVLPrNd12 / X”
10.6.28. Only In Theaters. pic.twitter.com/kZVLPrNd12
The move does not change the creative team. Chris Columbus, who wrote the original 1984 film before directing Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two Harry Potter movies, remains attached to direct and produce. Steven Spielberg returns as executive producer through Amblin Entertainment, joined by Eleanor Columbus. Hannah Marks is writing the current draft from a screenplay credited to Columbus, Zach Lipovsky, and Adam B. Stein, the duo behind Final Destination: Bloodlines.
Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav first confirmed the project on an investor call in 2025 and placed it on the 2027 calendar. At the time, the studio framed the film as a live-action continuation rather than a reboot. That description still stands. What has not arrived is a title, a cast, a plot synopsis, or a confirmed start of production. Reports around the date change say cameras have not rolled and that filming may now begin in early 2027, which would explain why a November 2027 opening no longer looked realistic.
The new date is not only later. It is also a better fit for the movie Warner Bros. is selling. The original Gremlins opened in June 1984 and helped invent the modern PG-13 comedy-horror hybrid. Gremlins 2: The New Batch arrived in June 1990 as a self-aware studio satire. Neither film was a Halloween title. This one will be.
October’s first weekend has already paid off for the studio. Joker opened October 4, 2019, and became the first R-rated film to cross $1 billion worldwide. A horror-comedy about creatures that multiply when they get wet and turn lethal after midnight sits more comfortably in early October than in the Thanksgiving corridor, where family animation and awards-season titles usually dominate. The old date also would have put the film in range of Disney’s Frozen 3. The new one does not.
Warner Bros. also shifted DC Studios’ Dynamic Duo from June 2028 to September 22, 2028, as part of the same slate shuffle. Reporting around the announcement says the pending Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery did not drive either date change. Neither slot had a Paramount title sitting on it.
The teaser is brief: a Mogwai, a backpack, a muffled “Uh-oh,” and the new date. That is the entire official look. Columbus has said in earlier comments that the creatures will be practical puppets, not CGI, in keeping with the 1984 and 1990 films. He has also described the story as a direct sequel rather than a reset, and as “twisted and dark.” Those comments predate the current draft. Whether they still describe the movie Marks is writing is an open question.
Joe Dante, who directed both earlier features, is not returning. That absence will disappoint fans who consider Gremlins 2 one of the sharpest studio comedies of its era. Columbus’s case is different and legitimate: he wrote the original, he knows the tone that made Gizmo and Stripe household names, and he has spent four decades directing large, audience-facing movies. The franchise has been in some stage of development since at least 2013. After 13 years of rumors, a locked date and a first image still count as progress.
The first film grossed about $151 million domestically on an $11 million budget and helped create the PG-13 rating. The sequel made $41 million and later found a cult audience. The animated Max series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai proved there is still mythology left to mine. A live-action threequel arriving 38 years after Gremlins 2 is a different bet — the same bet studios keep making after Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and other late sequels proved audiences will show up for a familiar monster if the movie feels like itself.
No one asked for another year. Fans who marked November 2027 on a calendar now have to wait until the first weekend of October 2028. That is the cost of a project that was greenlit before it was ready to shoot. The consolation is small but real: the film now opens in a season that matches its DNA, with the original writer in the director’s chair and Spielberg still on the call sheet.
Until then, the rules have not changed. Do not get them wet. Do not feed them after midnight. And do not expect a title card or a cast list before Warner Bros. is ready to show more than an 11-second clip.
Gremlins 3 is scheduled to open in theaters on October 6, 2028.
