The Original Script For Gremlins Was A Gory, Violent, R-Rated Horror Movie

Despite a copious amount of violence, multiple deaths, and slimy, goopy scenes wherein little monsters get blended, torched, melted, and otherwise horribly mutilated, Joe Dante's Frank Capra spoof "Gremlins" was released on June 8, 1984, with a PG rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. Producer Steven Spielberg recognized that "Gremlins," in being so tonally whimsical, wasn't quite raw enough to warrant an R-rating, yet also realized that it might be a little too terrifying for the kids who were allowed to see PG-rated movies. Spielberg suggested to the MPAA that it introduce a PG-13 rating to cover films like "Gremlins." It should also be noted that, in 1984, a PG rating was similarly given to Spielberg's violent adventure film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," so it was high time a stop-gap be included.

The PG-13 rating was introduced on July 1, less than a month after "Gremlins" opened. Weirdly, "Gremlins" was never re-submitted for a new rating and bears its PG rating to this day. Warning to elementary school teachers: "Gremlins" may not be a great film to show to your third-grade class. It'll scare the jeepers out of them.

Fans of "Gremlins" likely know that it started its life in a more violent form than it eventually became. The original script was written by Chris Columbus and he never intended it to be made.  He just wanted to get his wildest ideas on the page as a mere writing sample, an example of how he thinks. The script, however, made its way to Spielberg's office and he decided to produce it, though he ultimately made it less gruesome. Columbus was shocked. The story of the film's inception was recounted in a recent oral history, printed in The Ringer, where some details of the original R-rated script were discussed.

Producer Mike Finnell recalled how Columbus' monster movie script ended up in the hands of Steven Spielberg:

"Chris Columbus, when he was a film student at NYU, lived in a crummy apartment like we all did as starving students. And he would hear mice in the apartment, running around. He realized that [in] most monster movies — 'Godzilla,' 'King Kong' – the monster's big. But in a way, something small is scarier, because they can hide. So he came up with this idea and he wrote this spec script. Somehow it got to an agent and CAA sent it out as a writing sample because they thought that nobody would make it. It was just too nuts."

Nuts, how? Dante said on the "Gremlins" DVD commentary track that Columbus' original draft was far darker. There is a scene about halfway through the film wherein the character Lynn (Frances Lee McCain) fights with gremlins in her kitchen. She ultimately wins the day by shoving one gremlin in a blender and locking another in a microwave oven. What's more nuts than that? In the original draft, Lynn was decapitated and her head was thrown down a staircase.

Dante also recalled a scene wherein the gremlins eat a dog belonging to the protagonist Billy (Zach Galligan). "There was one scene where Billy and Kate go into a McDonald's and all of the people are half eaten, but the burgers are untouched," Finnell likewise remembered. Most notably, the original draft had a darker fate for Gizmo. Mogwais are first furry critters that metamorphose into gremlins if they eat a meal after midnight. In Columbus' draft, Gizmo transformed into Stripe, the film's scariest gremlin. But Spielberg dictated that Gizmo remain cute and furry throughout and that Stripe be a different creature.

If you want to see all the differences, you can read the full R-rated version of "Gremlins" here.

In the Ringer oral history, Dante note that when he "read the original draft of 'Gremlins,' which was a grade-B horror movie that was really R-rated, I thought, 'Well, sure.'" Dante was no stranger to horror, having recently made "The Howling," as well as the notable Roger Corman-produced "Jaws" knockoff "Piranha." It was certainly ironic that the director of "Jaws" thought to hire Dante, the maker of one of its most notorious imitators. Spielberg was a fan of Dante, however, and Dante noted that Spielberg went so far as to cast the lead actor from "The Howling," Dee Wallace, in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial."

Many of the people at Warner Bros. were already familiar with the wild "Gremlins" script, and just as many were baffled by Spielberg pursuing it. Spielberg, however, was going through a horror phase, overseeing production of Tobe Hooper's "Poltergeist" and planning an Indiana Jones movie where a living person gets their heart ripped out on camera. Clearly, violence was on his mind, so he sought to make "Gremlins." Dante was happy for the work and knew he could direct "Gremlins," but he also knew that others were eyeballing the project a little askance:

"We went to the studio at Warner Bros., and they were thrilled to get a Spielberg movie, even though they didn't have any idea what it was about. They could not figure out why they wanted to make this movie, but they said, 'Great.' The word around the lot was 'Spielberg's Folly.' That was how they basically looked at it."

"Gremlins" was made for a notably high $11 million, but went on to make over $150 million at the domestic box office alone. That's a pretty profitable folly.