Next Year Spinal Tap’s Gonna Rock Ya Next Year… With a Sequel Movie in the Works

Four decades after its initial release, the seminal and satirical rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap is getting an honest-to-goodness sequel.

Considered by many to be one of (if not) the funniest rock and roll movies of all time, This Is Spinal Tap has long been rumored to have a sequel in the works. Yet during a recent appearance on the RHLSTP With Richard Herring podcast, director Rob Reiner said things are full-steam ahead for a 2024 release.

Included in the news is the fact that all of the core members of Spinal Tap — David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) — will return to their roles. However, included in the cast list are some legit major musicians, including Elton John, Garth Brooks, and Sir Paul McCartney.

For those keeping score, the Spinal Tap sequel was originally hinted at during last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Apparently, the new movie will be akin to the classic Martin Scorsese flick The Last Waltz, which showcased the final days of The Band before eventually having a major falling out and calling it quits.

At the time, Reiner said this about the potential sequel:

“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.

“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 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.”

While it’s hard to one up the original, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with Spinal Tap 40 years after the fact. If there’s no mention of nu metal or some of the more modern shit in the movie, I think that’d be a bit of a missed opportunity. Who knows?