While it may seem like an idea two or three decades too late, the gang from “This Is Spinal Tap” are reuniting for an encore, turning it up to 11 one more time. That’s right, the entire original gang, director Rob Reiner, and writers and cast members David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) are returning for “This Is Spinal Tap II.”
Reiner, who made his directorial debut in 1984 with “This Is Spinal Tap,” will also return as filmmaker Marty DiBergi and reuse the mock-documentary format about a loud, obnoxious, and crass heavy metal band from England who always seems to be losing and replacing drummers.
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Why now, all these years later? “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 explained to Deadline in a recent interview. “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.”
This isn’t exactly the first Spinal Tap reunion. Taking the meta-joke one step further into reality, the actors and band members—who actually wrote the music and lyrics to the songs in the first place— have reunited several times over the years to play full-on sincere rock concerts, seemingly a bit irony-free too.
“They’ve played Albert Hall, played Wembley Stadium, all over the country and in Europe,” Reiner said. “They haven’t spent any time together recently, and that became the premise. The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away. In reality, Tony Hendra passed away. Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert. She was basically going to sue them if they didn’t. 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.”
The original was full of on-the-rise actors and comedians, and guest stars and Reiner hopes the new one will be filled with cameos too.
Castlerock Entertainment has even given the film a release date: March 19, 2024. “This is Spinal Tap II” was definitely ahead of its time and arguably launched and created the whole mock-doc genre. There’s a really fine line between stupid and clever. Can the group capture the zeitgeist again and recreate the magic? Pencil in that date two years from now to find out.