Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and Waiting For Guffman (1996)

Film Stories with Simon Brew

After the huge success of the original Gremlins, Warner Bros quickly wanted a sequel. The people who'd actually made Gremlins, not least director Joe Dante? The thought of making another was not in the slightest big appealing. Until, many years later, the studio made Dante an offer: if you make Gremlins 2, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.

This is the story of how the ensuing film became one of the most boldest blockbuster sequels of all time.

Later in the same decade, Christopher Guest took a small company of actors down to Texas for a month. On a modest budget, he shot over 50 hours of footage, that'd take over a year to edit into a feature film. Even when the resultant movie, Waiting For Guffman, was finished, it took a long time to earn its reputation as a modern comedy classic...

Stories of both films are told in this episode.

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