Spaceballs 2: The Blockbuster Trends Mel Brooks Should Skewer Next

We’ve had Spaceballs: The Lunch Box, Spaceballs: The Flamethrower, and even Spaceballs: The Toilet Paper. But now it’s time for Spaceballs: The Sequel. The Schwartz is still strong with 98-year-old comedy legend Mel Brooks, who will return once again as wise teacher Yogurt for Spaceballs 2, the follow-up to Brooks’ 1987 Star Wars parody.

It’s been 30 years since Brooks last wrote and directed a movie (though he’s received a few writing credits here and there), and it was 1995’s Dracula: Dead and Loving It. But Brooks isn’t writing or directing Spaceballs 2. Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Will & Harper) takes over directing duties while the script is credited to Benji Samit, Dan Hernandez, and Josh Gad. However, the creative quartet would be fools not to take some advice from Brooks, who got his start writing for Sid Caesar in 1950 and has long been one of the most influential voices in American comedy. Of course a lot’s changed since Brooks last skewered a Hollywood blockbuster, but therein lies the fun. There is now just so much more ridiculous stuff for him to spoof, including these Dark Schwartz trends.

Spoofing the Superheroes

Seven years after Dead and Loving It came Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, the first great entry in the second wave of superhero movies, a genre that only grew more dominant with the MCU and the endless pantheon of interconnected films that followed. So of course we’ve got to see what Brooks can do with the genre.

The one major objection one might bring relates to the 98-year-old comedian’s relationship to the source matieral. Brooks’ best parodies come from a genuine love and respect for whatever genre he was taking the piss out of. He got the original props from 1931’s Frankenstein for his own Young Frankenstein and hired original Western crooner Frankie Laine to sing the title ballad in Blazing Saddles. It’s hard to imagine that Brooks has strong feelings about the upcoming Booster Gold movie. So maybe he won’t be able to provide the level of detail that he brought to his best work.

On the other hand, Brooks is a consummate Borsch Belt comedian and loves working his Jewish heritage into his comedies. The original superhero creators—guys like Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby—were Jewish, and while the degree to which their heritage influenced their work varied, certainly Brooks could pull out enough to spin some incredible jokes. Also there is plenty of crossover these days between superhero movies like Guardians of the Galaxy or even Thor: Ragnarok and The Marvels, and Star Wars. Room to grow and laugh at gags.

CGI Unleashed!

One of the best gags in Spaceballs occurs during the battle between Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis, who plans to come out of retirement for the sequel). Midway through the battle, one of Helmet’s Schwartz strikes goes awry and takes out a boom operator holding the mic for the scene. The two enemies stop for a moment to acknowledge the background crew, with the dark one even saying, “He did it,” putting the blame on Lone Starr.

The gag works not just because of the slapstick. It also works because it reveals the mundane inner workings of a fantasy space epic. Lone Starr and Dark Helmet are in a titanic struggle of good versus evil. That camera man was just doing his job.

Today movies still have camera men and best boys and grips and dollies. But they also have a deep dependence on CGI and LED screen sets such as the Volume. These tools purport to better integrate real actors, but they can also be used to heighten the unreality of a movie. Here Brooks’ age could become an asset, as he could have a lot of fun using the ability to create anything he imagines, teasing the movies’ overreliance on such tools by using them to make ridiculous visuals.

Legacy Sequels and Unnecessary Sequels

According to Deadline, those who have read the Spaceballs 2 script describe it as, “A Non-Prequel Non-Reboot Sequel Part Two but with Reboot Elements Franchise Expansion Film.” That line probably didn’t come from Brooks but it sounds like the sort of thing he would say. After all, Brooks has always cared about the absurdity of show business, which has been a target from his days on Your Show of Shows, a part of his 2000 Year Old Man routine with Carl Reiner, and especially in his movies. How else do you get the soundstage breaking climax of Blazing Saddles?

We know that Bill Pullman will be bringing his son Lewis Pullman along for Spaceballs 2, giving Brooks and company plenty to work with. In fact, the entire idea of reviving a nearly-40-year-old movie—one that already had an ill-fated spin-off in 2008’s Spaceballs: The Animated Series—is pretty ridiculous. Yes, Brooks was involved in The Animated Series, but that won’t keep him from making jokes at its (or an IP-obsessed industry’s) expense. He’s always been willing to poke fun at himself.

In fact, this involvement feels like a natural extension of his two characters from Spaceballs, the unscrupulous President Skroob and the merchandise-loving Yogurt. Those two understood the financial importance of exploiting every single part of a concept, and Brooks’ jokes about them will only be more relevant in a landscape that features seven Jurassic Park movies, 10 The Fast and Furious movies, and too many Star Wars movies and TV shows to keep track of anymore.

The Endless Streaming Glut

The “merchandising” gag from Spaceballs has only grown more prescient since 1987. What initially just referred to George Lucas‘ savvy handling of toy and clothing rights has become the watch-word of an industry that expects every blockbuster to spawn a streaming spinoff show, several sequels, video games, apps, and so much more.

That type of Hollywood hubris is ripe for Brooks’ satirical eye. He’s always been able to recognize the cigar-munching huckster behind even the most elevated cinematic art. So it’s easy to imagine Yogurt spending Spaceballs 2 pitching ideas for a streaming series about Pizza the Hutt’s sidekick Vinnie, or an animated kids show about young Yogurt (maybe for Hulu, which streamed another Brooks sequel The History of the World, Part II).

More importantly, all this talk of spinoffs and prequels and streaming shows brings Spaceballs 2 back to Star Wars. Sure the original film included bits on The Wizard of Oz and Planet of the Apes, but it used Star Wars as its spine. If Spaceballs 2 is going to succeed, it needs to follow Brooks in its focus and attention to detail. Fortunately Star Wars has more than enough for someone like Brooks to laugh at, even 40 years after Spaceballs.

Spaceballs 2 is slated for a 2027 release.