<
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/nov/28/paul-mccartney-and-elton-john-to-appear-in-spinal-tap-sequel>
"Paul McCartney and Elton John will appear in the sequel to cult mockumentary
This Is Spinal Tap, for which filming is due to get under way early next
year, it has been revealed.
Rob Reiner, director of the original 1984 release as well as the sequel, was
speaking to comedian Richard Herring on the latter’s
RHLSTP (
Richard
Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast). Reiner told Herring, after the
latter expressed his admiration for
This Is Spinal Tap, that “everybody’s
back” for the sequel and that filming would begin at the end of February.
Reiner also said that “Paul McCartney is joining us, and Elton John”, along
with US country music star Garth Brooks.
News of plans to make a
Spinal Tap sequel broke in May 2022, when the project
was shopped at the Cannes film festival international market. Reiner said then:
“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 honour the first one and push it a little further with the story.”
The original film’s main cast of Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher
Guest are due to return, although Tony Hendra, who played cricket-bat-wielding
manager Ian Faith, died in 2021. The plot will reportedly centre on Faith’s
death, after which his widow inherits a contract that requires the band to do
one last concert. Reiner is also due to return in the character of film-maker
Marty DiBergi, a figure supposedly based on Martin Scorsese, who had directed
celebrated music documentary
The Last Waltz in 1976.
In the podcast, Reiner also talked about
This Is Spinal Tap’s remarkable
afterlife, culminating in selection for the National Film Registry in 2002,
after its initially unfavourable reception on its first release. “To wind up in
the National Film Registry, that’s bizarre,” Reiner said. “We previewed it in a
theatre in Dallas, Texas, and the people didn’t know what the heck they were
looking at. They came up to me afterwards and said, ‘I don’t understand, why
would you make a movie about a band that no one has ever heard of, and they are
so bad? Why would you ever do that? Why don’t you make a movie about the
Beatles or the Rolling Stones?’ I would say, ‘It’s satire,’ and I tried to
explain. But over the years people got it, and started to like it.”"
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
