The 80s never ended. Ready Player One's nostalgia-themed dystopia is creeping ever closer. We'll be getting new Beetlejuice and Jurassic Park movies until the end of time, and Hollywood seems intent on digging up even more dead horses to beat: case in point, The Goonies 2, which is now in development at Warner Bros. Per Variety:
Warner Bros. has hired Potsy Ponciroli [somehow not the name of a background gangster from The Sopranos] to write the script for the sequel, it was announced Friday — almost 40 years after the original movie hit theaters back in 1985. Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger and Holly Bario will produce for Amblin Entertainment alongside Chris Columbus, who wrote the original "Goonies" script. Lauren Shuler Donner will executive produce. There is no director attached to the sequel yet, and there are no plot details revealed yet.
Josh Brolin, Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Ke Huy Quan and Martha Plimpton all starred in the original 1985 movie about a group of kids who find an ancient map to hidden treasure. Directed by Richard Donner and produced by Spielberg, "The Goonies" made $125 million worldwide at the box office from a budget of just $19 million. It's gone on to become a cult classic and was selected to be preserved in the National Registry by the Library of Congress in 2017.
What would a The Goonies sequel even be about? The original gang are in their fifties now, and I doubt there are many fun hijinks to be had from getting ready to apply for Medicare or trying to understand Gen Z. Maybe Sloth makes it big on TikTok? The original movie was a self-contained story, and digging this franchise out of its grave – if one movie can, indeed, call one movie a franchise – will probably not accrue a pirate's treasure at the box office.
If nothing else, though, I'm glad Ke Huy Quan is working, even if I'd like to see him flex his acting muscles in something a little more substantive than a retread of a big early role. At least we still have Everything Everywhere All at Once.
