A ‘Spinal Tap’ Sequel Is Finally Happening

With Top Gun: Maverick proving that you fan make a great sequel more than 30 years after the previous film, that opens the door to a lot of other ’80s movies that never got followups. Like, how about a new  

The film, directed by Rob Reiner and written by and starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, is maybe the funniest film of the 1980s, not to mention the movie that really popularized the mockumentary format. In the years after the movie, Spinal Tap went from a spoof of hard rock bands to an actual touring hard rock band — I once saw them play Carnegie Hall with the Folksmen from A Mighty Wind as their opening act. But they never made another Spinal Tap movie.

That will soon change as Reiner, Guest, McKean, and Shearer are all apparently ready to reunite for a Spinal Tap II. Deadline reports that Reiner will direct the film and once again play the director of the movie within the movie Marty DiBergi. Guest, McKean, and Shearer will play Tap members Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbens, and Derek Smalls again, respectively.

Reiner told the trade a rough idea for the movie:

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? 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.

It’s been a long time since Spinal Tap played together as a group (that Carnegie Hall show was about 20 years ago), and it’s been a while since Christopher Guest even made a movie. (His last effort, Mascots, debuted on Netflix back in 2016.) I’m not sure how Spinal Tap fit into the modern music landscape in 2022, but if they waited this long to make Spinal Tap 2 you have to figure they must have a darn good reason to create one now.