A Spaceballs Sequel Will be Inflicted on the World
Dark Helmet must be rolling in… whatever he’s stuck in on the Planet of the Apes. Scooper Jeff Sneider initially broke the story that a sequel to Mel Brooks’ classic Star Wars parody Spaceballs is being developed for Amazon MGM Studios, with Josh Gad starring and co-writing it with Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez. Josh Greenbaum will direct the film, with Gad and Brooks producing. Gad later confirmed the story on Instagram. Spaceballs, released in 1987, starred Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Brooks himself in two roles. Another of Brooks’ films, History of the World Part One, got a sequel in the form of a miniseries on Hulu.
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I’m not looking forward to this at all, and I say that as someone who thinks Spaceballs is one of the greatest comedies ever made and Mel Brooks’ best movie. You know what Josh Gad has written? Next to nothing. Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez, on the other hand, have written Koala Man, which was awful, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which looked awful, and one episode of Amazon’s The Tick, which, to be fair, was great. They also wrote Detective Pikachu, one of the animated Addams Family movies, and something Josh Gad also wrote that I never heard of. Josh Greenbaum has only directed two narrative films: some direct-to-video movie called Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar and Strays, the talking animal movie starring the voice of Will Ferrell. Other than that, Greenbaum has mostly directed documentaries, including that one about George Lazenby that I’ve been meaning to watch. Do any of these people sound like they’re on the same planet as a legend like Mel Brooks?
Aside from all of that, it’s the current year. There’s no way a comedy like Spaceballs can be made today. You know this thing is going to be political as hell; I ended up avoiding History of the World: Part Two despite loving Part One because I could tell by the trailer that it was an anti-Trump screed. The Spaceballs sequel will almost certainly be about the modern era of Star Wars, which means “toxic fandom” will be the villain. This will be a movie made to please Disney and Lucasfilm, not Star Wars fans (much like modern Star Wars media). Moreover, I really don’t want a sequel to Spaceballs. First of all, it’s absolute perfection on its own, and anything else will just diminish it. And Spaceballs was made with love, a parody of a beloved series of films meant to celebrate them; that’s going to ring false with the sequels and Disney+ shows, especially if it goes after the fans, which it almost certainly will in the most mean-spirited way possible. It just reinforces the growing reality that nothing great will ever be left alone, that every bone must be picked at; Josh Gad referring to Spaceballs as a “franchise” is exactly the problem. And that’s not even getting into how wrong it feels to do a Spaceballs movie without John Candy, Joan Rivers, or Rick Moranis (the last of whom I don’t see coming out of retirement for this). I think I’ll be skipping this, but maybe I’ll use it as an excuse to watch the real Spaceballs a few more times, as if I need one.
I was never much of a Mel Brooks fan. It’s a timing thing. The older generation used to just laugh hysterically at him, but for some reason, I never got into it.
Moranis is long past it. He got pushed around by some criminal in NYC recently.
Thinking about it though, it could work way better now than before because I watch Tubers roast The Acolyte all day. There is a lot more material to work with now than back then. Back then, they were mocking something that people actually enjoy, but now that Star Wars is woke, it will be interesting to see how they make fun of it.
I feel like The Acolyte is giving us what the all female Ghostbusters did. It seems like we are stuck in this repetitive cycle of girl bosses pretending there is a glass ceiling, but when given control, the material that they put out is shamefully embarrassing. Where’s Milo when you need him?
Sometimes, I wonder what fans did to deserve this, but I have to realize that these are people full of privilege and nepotism. The free market does not apply to them because they were just handed everything. With money printing and looting, they never have to be profitable.