News

It was an innocent question.

A Facebook friend of Screen Archives Entertainment, the online soundtrack merchant most notably associated with the Film Score Monthly label, asked if there would ever be a release of Jerry Goldsmith’s score to Gremlins. It’s not an unfair question, either: it’s one of Goldsmith’s most popular and fun scores, and with yesterday having been his birthday (he would have been 82), there’s no better time to ask.

What nobody expected was SAE’s answer: “Sometime this year I believe.” Unsurprisingly, the shockwaves ran deep. Despite the popularity of the film (and the definite need for expanding the extremely short LP, which featured pop songs and score), the major soundtrack labels have been tight-lipped about a potential reissue of Gremlins. News spread like wildfire across film music message boards, and FSM founder Lukas Kendall locked the topic on his site’s board with a terse statement:

OK…this is one that they were NOT supposed to be mention [sic].

This has been in the works for eons. However, there are some major licensing issues that have to be resolved between Warner Bros. and Universal Music (Geffen Records) and I cannot predict how long it will take.

Kendall is understandably not happy about the slip, but this author is glad to hear some development on one of the holiest of holy grails in film score history. Depending on how one reads into that tidbit, it seems that the future reissue would feature both the complete score and the three rare pop tracks, Quarterflash’s “Make It Shine,” Michael Sembello’s “Gremlins…Mega Madness” and “Out Out,” performed by Peter Gabriel with Nile Rodgers in the producer’s chair.

And this Gremlins fan will wait as long as it takes for a release…even after midnight.