Get ready to turn it up to 11 – the long-awaited sequel to This is Spinal Tap is on the way. Spinal Tap II will be released on March 19, 2024, marking the 40th anniversary of the classic 1984 cult mockumentary.
With director Rob Reiner at the helm, the new film is born from the same creative team and features the original cast members as its 1984 predecessor. Reiner will also reprise his role as filmmaker Marty DiBergi, along with Michael McKean as singer David St. Hubbins, Harry Shearer as bassist Derek Smalls and Christopher Guest as guitarist Nigel Tufnel. Sadly, Ric Parnell, who played drummer Mick Shrimpton, died earlier this month, aged 70.
“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 told 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 honour the first one and push it a little further with the story.”
Spinal Tap | ‘Big Bottom’
Spinal Tap goes down as one of the greatest rock comedies ever made. It turned rock star antics and inflated egos into legendary comic antics that have become the stuff of rock legend. When I met with Sting years ago, Reiner said, 'I’ve seen that movie 50 times, and every time I watch it I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because it’s so much what happens.'"
In the four decades since the original film was released, Guest, McKean and Shearer have reunited as the fictional band for occasional live performances, with the last live performance taking place in 2009. According to Reiner, that time away spent apart became “the premise”.
“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 [the actor who portrayed Faith] 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.”
‘This Is Spinal Tap’ [Trailer]
This is Spinal Tap was released to critical acclaim in 1984. In 2002, the US Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation by the National Film Registry.
Spinal Tap II will be released in March 2024.
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