Steven Spielberg almost hired Tim Burton to direct GREMLINS

This holiday season, one classic Christmas movie that might be on your bucket list is the 1984 fantasy horror comedy, Gremlinsas a writer Christopher Columbus and director Gio Dante. It’s a fun cult classic that still has a thriving fan base, but it almost felt very different.

Steven Spielberg he was a producer on the film, and apparently, when he read the script, he had an up-and-coming director in mind to take the job. That is, after reluctantly passing it on. According to an oral history of Gremlins published by cutprintfilm, Spielberg wanted to make the film when he first read it, but it wasn’t going to work. He’s been hunting for the right director and he’s almost there Tim Burton.

Burton worked for Disney in the early 1980s, serving as a concept artist on films such as The fox and the hunting dog and The Black Cauldron. While working at Disney, Burton made his own stop-motion animated short film called Vincentnarrated by Vincent Price, and he directed a live-action television version Hansel and Gretel for the Disney channel. It was Burton’s live-action short Frankenweeniehowever, that caught Spielberg’s attention.

While he loved Burton’s style of work, his only obstacle was that the young director hadn’t yet made a feature film, so he reverted to Joe Dante, who he ended up directing.

I think that Gremlins he would have been a perfect match for Burton, but he kept coming through Pee Wee’s Big Adventure the following year, and then Cockroach juice, Batmanand Edward scissor hands in quick succession, so everything worked out for the best.

Via: /Movies