“Goonies Never Say Die” Motto Now Destroyed For The Ages, But Broadway Could Beckon
1985 is a good year. It gave us “Back To The Future,” “The Breakfast Club” and another mainstream ’80s pop film classic, Richard Donner‘s “The Goonies.” Much like Robert Zemeckis’ picture (the number one domestic grossing picture that year), currently celebrating its 25th anniversary with a new Blu-Ray/DVD disc, (“The Goonies” was the ninth highest domestic grossing film that year).
Starring a whos who of talent — Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton, Jonathan Ke Quan, Anne Ramsey, Robert Davi, and Joe Pantoliano — some of them big name players now, some of them long forgotten, “The Goonies” was an Amblin Entertainment film which means its story was conceived from the mind of Steven Spielberg, and its producers were heavyweights like Kathleen Kennedy (all the “Jurassic Park” films and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial“) and Frank Marshall (the ‘Bourne‘ series) among others (director Chris Columbus wrote the script).
It’s an ’80s touchstone, agreed? Agreed, great, but as per usual Hollywood can’t let go of a good thing, and a proposed sequel has been in the works for several years (thankfully, during their round of interviews the “Back To The Future” teams said once Michael J. Fox contracted Parkinsons any vague notions of a “Back To The Future IV” were squashed). However, recent interviews with Richard Donner seem to indicate that the “Goonies” motto, “Goonies never say die,” has been, well… never say never as they say.
“There have been talks for so many years and I know that a lot of us are for it. But honestly, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen,” Jonathan Ke Quan, who played the role of Richard ‘Data’ Wang recently told Collider. “If it was going to happen it would’ve happened many years ago.”
Corey Feldman revealed even more. “I talked to him [Richard Donner] about a script but it didn’t end up flourishing. The sequel script, there have been times up until five years ago where they actually had a script with well-renowned writers working on a great, magnificent script and it just didn’t happen. There’s a lot of politics involved but the bottom line, like what Jeff [Cohen] said jokingly, but this is in all essences a treasure trove for Warner Bros. It’s their classic family film of all time. So I think we would all be supportive in seeing it happen if there was the right script, if [Richard] Donner was at the helm and [Steven] Spielberg got behind it. Yeah, I’d be there. But at this point I don’t think its going to happen because we’re all getting too old. If it didn’t happen like today then you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
“We were thinking that (the sequel) for years back, couldn’t do it. Felt like everything we were doing would hurt what we had with the original,” Donner himself wisely said noting that maybe they’ll do a Broadway musical. Cool, that’ll work, and won’t tarnish anything. Good plan.
