A sequel to the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap is in the works with the original director and cast.
Spinal Tap II will see Rob Reiner return as both film-maker on and off the screen along with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest. The film will be released in 2024 on the 1984 original’s 40th anniversary.
“I can tell you hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one?” Reiner said to Deadline. “For so many years, we said, ‘nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it, to do it. You want to honor the first one and push it a little further with the story.”
The plot will reportedly centre on the death of the fictional British band’s manager and his wife who then inherits a contract that requires them to do one last concert. There’s bad blood and anger towards Reiner’s film-maker Martin “Marty” Di Bergi who they feel did a hatchet job with the original documentary but returns to film their final hurrah.
While the original was met with critical acclaim, it wasn’t an initial hit commercially, later finding an audience on VHS instead. Reiner has said that initial viewers were confused.
“The first time we screened in Dallas, they didn’t know what the hell it was,” Reiner said. “People came up to me and said, I don’t understand why would you make a movie about a band no one has heard of and is so bad. Why would you do it? I said, it’s satire and I would explain, but it took a while for people to catch up to it. Now, it’s in the National Film Registry.”
The original is set to screen at this year’s Cannes film festival which begins later this month and the sequel package will be shopped around at the festival’s market.
Earlier this month saw the fictional band’s drummer Ric Parnell, who later toured with them in real life, die at the age of 70. “Nobody hit the drums harder than Ric,” McKean wrote on a GoFundMe page to help pay expenses associated with his death.
