Is Spaceballs 2 Happening, Or Is The Schwartz No Longer With Us?
The timing of Mel Brooks' 1987 spoof "Spaceballs" was, when one thinks about it, rather peculiar. 1987 was a fallow time for the "Star Wars" saga. The last film in the series, "Ewoks: The Battle for Endor," had come out a full two years prior, and it was not terribly well-received or even widely seen. "Star Wars" had begun making the rounds on VHS, but there was, at the time, no solid plan to make any additional films, nor was "Star Wars" the massive commercial presence it would come to be. As pointed out in "Spaceballs," however, "Return of the Jedi" merch was still lingering in stores; one of the running gags throughout Brooks' film is that the characters themselves own "Spaceballs" tie-in products.
Indeed, in the film's funniest meta-gag, the evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) and Colonel Sandurz (George Wyner) rent a VHS copy of "Spaceballs" and fast-forward to the scene they're in. Even as early as 1987, the home video market, Brooks seemed to say, was cannibalizing films.
With all the open talk of merchandising in "Spaceballs," Brooks — in character as the gnome-like sage Yogurt — also speaks openly, on camera, about the possibility of a sequel. He proposes a film called "Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money." For years thereafter, young "Spaceballs" fans wondered if that was going to be a thing. Rumors going about my own elementary school play yard was that Brooks was working on a sequel called "Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2." Of course, in the film's opening crawl, "Spaceballs" was deemed "Chapter Eleven," so perhaps a proper sequel would be "Spaceballs: Episode XII — Too Many Subtitles."
In recent years, Brooks has teased the possibility of a late-stage sequel. Let's catalogue what has been said.
Why hasn't Spaceballs 2 happened yet?
As the first "Spaceballs" exhibited, Mel Brooks may just be bad at timing. 1987 wasn't the best time for a "Star Wars" spoof, and it would likely have caused more of a splash three or four years earlier when the franchise was riding high. In 2015, Disney kicked off the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy and announced plans to release a new "Star Wars" film every year from then until Kingdom Come. The idea was that the numerical episodic movies would come out every other year, while spinoff movies and interquels would come out in the intervening years. Almost immediately, a certain segment of the population rolled their eyes at the upcoming glut.
It seems that 2016 or 2017 would have been the perfect time to release a "Spaceballs" sequel. Something that could satirize the overblown commercialism of the new wave of "Star Wars" films. As of 2023, the plan for annual "Star Wars" films has fallen by the wayside, and the franchise has withered into mixed-quality TV shows on Disney+. It didn't take long for "Star Wars" to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The '20s seems like a bad time to release a "Spaceballs" movie. But then, with "Star Wars" withering on the vine, perhaps this would be good timing after all. "Spaceballs" could come in and deal a death blow.
Back in 2013, in an interview with Heeb Magazine, Moranis pointed out that he was in conversation with Brooks about making "Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2," a title he liked and pitched himself, but that no deal had yet been struck.
Everything Brooks has said about Spaceballs 2
Brooks, now 97, has gone on record several times about making a "Spaceballs 2." Back in 2015, when the time was right, Brooks spoke to Adam Corolla on the "Take a Knee" podcast about a sequel, saying that it would indeed be called "Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money," and that he would love to release it only a few weeks after "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." He also claimed at the time that Moranis was still interested, as was Daphne Zuniga, who played the Druish Princess Vespa in the 1987 original. "And I've still got me," he added, implying that he would appear again as Yogurt and/or President Skroob (or, at the very least, work on the sequel behind the scenes).
Sadly, Brooks missed the post-"Force Awakens" wave. Word wouldn't rise again for another two years when Brooks spoke at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. During an on-stage interview, Brooks admitted that he was in talks with MGM about "The Search for More Money," implying that he was actively seeking to make it a reality. This announcement was made about five months after "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" had opened in theaters and prior to the premiere of the ultra-popular, not-at-all-debated "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" near the end of that year. 2017 was still a good time for "Spaceballs 2."
Indeed, the staggeringly unfunny filmmakers Aaron Friedberg and Jason Seltzer had already pitched their own "Star Wars" spoof to be called "Star Worlds: Episode XXXIVE=MC2 – The Force Awakens the Last Jedi Who Went Rogue." That film has also (perhaps mercifully) not manifested.
What could happen in Spaceballs 2?
All of these conversations seemed to ignore the existence of the 2008 animated show "Spaceballs: The Animated Series." That show starred Brooks, Zuniga, and Dot Matrix actor Joan Rivers. Dom DeLuise also returned as the evil gangster Pizza the Hut. Rino Romano played Lone Star, the role originally played by Bill Pullman, and Tino Insana played Barf, the role played by the late John Candy. That series ran on Super Channel in Canada, however, and on G4 in the United States the following year. Perhaps Brooks didn't mention it because it's rather obscure, even among "Spaceballs" fans.
If "Spaceballs 2" was to spoof the current state of "Star Wars," then reuniting the remaining living cast members would indeed be an important part of making it. More on that below.
"Spaceballs 2" would also have to — like "The Force Awakens" — give the characters the "Tiny Toons" treatment, and present a new generation of similar, youthful counterparts to mirror the older characters. There would have to be a Lone Star Jr., a Vespa Jr., a Dark Helmet Jr., etc. Younger comedians could take up the mantle of the older actors. How keen if Max Brooks, Mel's son, played a junior President Skroob?
What's the story? Basic sci-fi hooey is all that is required. This is about more money, not more story. "Spaceballs 2" would be wise to spoof some of the sillier plot points in the new "Star Wars" movies, perhaps introducing a group of utterly boring characters and then killing them all off unceremoniously (a la "Rogue One"), or revealing that all that characters are secretly related (a la "The Rise of Skywalker"). Surely giggles could be milked from various characters entering rooms and saying "Somehow, I have returned."
Who will the stars of Spaceballs 2 be?
Pullman, now 69, could return as an older and wiser Lone Star, but still wearing the same clothes and in the same line of work as he was decades previous (just like Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in "The Force Awakens"). Zuniga, 61, could play General Vespa, leader of an anti-Spaceball army. Wyner, 78, could also return, as could Moranis, 70. Moranis has been retired for years, but one suspects that if a legend like Mel Brooks, already in his late 90s, asked you to return to a movie, then you'd probably do it. He has the energy. Why don't you? Indeed, Brooks has said he wouldn't make a "Spaceballs 2" unless Moranis agreed to return.
Sadly, Candy, Rivers, DeLuise, and Dick Van Patten, who played the Druish King Roland, have all passed away.
Since his initial announcements about "Spaceballs 2," Brooks has also made a TV miniseries sequel to his 1981 anthology comedy "History of the World Part I." Although he is credited as a writer, oversaw the project, and made a few interstitial announcements, 2023's "History of the World Part II" was credited to a dozen other additional writers and starred scads of working comedians. If we're to take "History of the World Part II" as a precedent, then "Spaceballs 2" would be handed off to other writers and comedians while Brooks dictated terms.
The timing is right (which is to say, we're a few years late), but one will still have to keep their fingers crossed to see if we can end the search for "Spaceballs 2."