This Is Spinal Tap actor and director Rob Reiner has revealed how plans for a sequel to the 1984 hit came after he and his fellow stars discussed bringing out a mock oral history about the band.
The original Spinal Tap told the story of rock stars Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) and David St. Hubbins (Michael McKeen) who were the subjects of a documentary made by interviewer Marty DiBergi (Reiner).
The trio were a parody of British rock bands of the 1970s like The Who and Pink Floyd, though obviously lacking the actual talent!
Reiner was previously at Cannes to present a special screening of This Is Spinal Tap as part of the Cinema de la Plage sidebar There, he is hoped to speak with financiers and producers about a potential sequel.
“I’ve never done a sequel, and I’ve never wanted to do one until now,” Reiner admitted, as reported by Variety.
“We have fun. We enjoy hanging out with each other and we’re probably not going to get a chance like this to work together again.”
How did the idea for a Spinal Tap sequel emerge?
Reiner says that the original plan for new material with regards to Spinal Tap was to create a mock oral history, though those talks soon developed into ideas for a movie.
“It was going to be an oral history of the band,” he explained.
“For half we’d be in character, and talk about the band’s lives and how they came together and what they’ve been up to. In the other half we’d be ourselves and talk about the experience of making the film.”
The original film was entirely improvised and didn't have a script, and although that will be the case for the sequel, it has been reported that it will take inspiration from Martin Scorsese's documentary The Last Waltz about the Band's farewell gig at Winterland Ballroom.
“The idea is that the band hasn’t seen each other for 10 or 15 years and they come back for one more tour and one thing leads to another,” Renier continued.
“Once we get started, we’ll figure things out. We only had the barebones of an idea on the first movie.”
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