After the success of the 3D film "Avatar," other film makers are trying to get their piece of the market share of the new film genre. Word around the net is .... a third installment of the popular 80s franchise Gremlins is in the works ... in 3D.

According to MTV's Movies Blog, an anonymous tipster says a 3D release of of Gremlins 3 is definitely in the works. However, no further details are known as this time.

MTV reached out director Joe Dante, who helmed the first two Gremlins films, and ... he hadn't heard anything about the rumors.

"These things come up from time to time," he said. "I don't know of anything officially that's going on."

It's either a rumor, the film is still in the early development stages, or Warner Bros. is moving along with the project without Dante. He did say, however, that he'd be opening to returning to the project for a third try.

Dante and Gremlins creator Chris Columbus told Empire Online last summer that there was discussion about a CGI-filled third movie, but it was a reboot and not a sequel. For now, we'll have to wait and see.

Here's a little backstory about the original films, via Wikipedia:

Gremlins is an American comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante and released in 1984 by Warner Bros. It is about a young man who receives a strange creature (called a mogwai) named Gizmo as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. This story was continued with a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, released in 1990. Unlike the lighter sequel, the original Gremlins opts for more black comedy, which is balanced against a Christmas-time setting. Both films were the center of large merchandising campaigns.