Almost 40 years ago, Mel Brooks created Spaceballs, which Wikipedia generously refers to as “a space opera parody.” Its target is, most frequently, Star Wars (as A New Hope was then called), complete with princess, scoundrel, gold droid, furry sidekick, and, yes, Dark Helmet. (There’s also a xenomorph and some talking apes, too, just for fun.) It wasn’t perfect—nothing is!—but it worked far better than it should have, and gave us such memorable scenes as Daphne Zuniga’s mournful singing, Joan Rivers as a droid, and Mel Brooks (in one of two roles) merchandising “the Schwartz.”
Nothing about this film ever suggested that it needed a sequel. Naturally, one is on track to happen anyway.
Variety reports that Mel Brooks is returning to produce this in-development sequel at Amazon MGM Studios. Josh Gad (Frozen, Central Park) will star and also produce. Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) will direct; the screenplay is by Gad, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez. Samit and Hernandez were among the nine writers on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and had both story and screenplay credit on Detective Pikachu (along with a few other folks), and are also among the developers and writers of Koala Man.
This is the second time in recent years that Brooks has decided to revisit one of his earlier works; last year Hulu released History of the World, Part II, for which he teamed up with Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes, and Ike Barinholtz. The AV Club said it “feels like Drunk History with PG-rated dad jokes,” which may or may not be your cup of tea.
The Spaceballs sequel is in “early stages” of development and may yet not come to pass. May the Schwartz be with us.
