Rob Reiner wants to turn legacy sequels to 11. Per Deadline, the director will be helping the boys in Spinal Tap find the stage once again. Spinal Tap II is coming in early 2024 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the original film, This Is Spinal Tap.
Spinal Tap II will be the first project for the recently relaunched Castle Rock Entertainment film division and will reunite David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest). But, of course, they’ve reunited several times and released tw0 albums, 1992's Break Like The Wind and 2009's Back From The Dead, in the 40 years since the original’s release.
So why are they digging this one up now? To honor the original, obviously. Also, as we’ve reported in the past, Harry Shearer’s $125 million lawsuit against Vivendi and StudioCanal over the profits from This Is Spinal Tap was settled in 2020, giving Reiner and the band more of a stake in the film and paving the way for a sequel that fans will undoubtedly see and forget immediately.
“The plan is to do a sequel that comes out on the 40th anniversary of the original film, and I can tell you hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one?” Reiner tells 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.”
Reiner says that the story will revolve around the band reuniting after the death of their manager Ian Faith (the late Tony Hendra). However, Faith’s widow “inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert.” So the boys have to play one more concert, or they’ll be sued for a breach of contract. “All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into, and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert,” Reiner explains.
As for Reiner’s character, documentary filmmaker Marty DeBergi, Reiner says: “When it was announced that Spinal Tap would reunite for one final concert, Marty DeBergi saw this as a chance to make things right with the band who viewed This is Spinal Tap as a hatchet job. So he left his position as visiting adjunct teacher’s assistant at the Ed Wood School of Cinematic Arts in pursuit of film history.” Take that, Ed Wood.
Reiner, for his part, is coming off a very prolific decade, making movies that no one has ever heard of, including The Magic Of Belle Isle, And So It Goes, Being Charlie, and Shock And Awe.
It’s too early to judge, but we can already imagine the two-word reviews this thing will get. But who knows, if this one works, maybe Reiner can make sequels to some of his other movies. We’d love to see 2 Stand 2 By Me, A Few Good Men: Origins, and, of course, The Princess Bride (no subtitle necessary since this is a direct sequel to the original film, and we don’t do numbers anymore—it makes the movie seem more important).
Let’s hope they’re using a drum machine this time. Too many lives have been lost to this band.