10 Ways To Make A Good Goonies Sequel

It’s hopefully already a deal-breaker for returning director Richard Donner, but we obviously want to see all the Goonies again. They’ve battled Orks, Men In Black, Michael Jackson and obscurity in the interim but there’s no excuse for Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton, Kerri Green, Jeff Cohen and Ke Huy Quan not to make room in their busy/empty schedules.

Okay, so nostalgia is going to play a pretty big part of any return to the Goon Docks, but there are some things we just have to leave in 1985. The Baby Ruth loving Quasimodo who saved the day in the first movie would probably be in his 70s by now – and no one wants to see what that would look like. Whilst we’re at it, we can probably do without another feature length Cyndi Lauper music video too...

83-year-old Donner hasn’t directed a movie since 2006’s 16 Blocks , but he’s got a pretty solid track record ( Superman, Lethal Weapon ) and we wouldn’t want to see a Goonies movie if he wasn’t behind the camera. Even more so with Steven Spielberg – who Sean Astin called a ‘co-director’ on the first film – almost certainly returning as a very hands-on producer.

The first movie was wrung through with old-school Amblin charm, and none of that had anything to do with CGI. Indiana Jones might have nuked the fridge and Yoda can somersault off as many invisible walls as he wants, but we don’t want to see the Goonies exploring imaginary pirate ships, ducking 3D spikes and fighting the mo-cap ghost of One-Eyed Willie.

The incomparable Anne Ramsey (Mama Fratelli) sadly passed away in 1988, but there’s still plenty of room for Robert Davi and Joe Pantoliano in the sequel. Likely to have spent the last thirty years in jail, the Fratelli brothers are probably still harbouring a bit of a grudge against the annoying kids who put them there – giving the script an easy justification for rounding up the old gang, one by one.

The first movie had the kids dealing with growing up and moving out, so it makes sense that the sequel should tackle other real-world problems. Andy probably hasn’t spoken to Brand since their high-school fling, Data is probably a failed inventor, Chunk is struggling with diabetes and Mouth is paying for a string of divorces. Nothing, incidentally, that can’t be sorted out with a bit of old-fashioned adventuring.

Skulls, spikes and Saw -style booby-traps weren’t the half of it. Lest we forget that the Fratelli’s actually wanted to kill the innocent children they were chasing through the caverns. It takes a brave kids movie today to have such a constant level of genuine peril – and an even braver one to have so much screaming. We want real bad-guys. We want skeletons on sticks. We want jump shocks. (But maybe a little bit less NOISE).

The Goonies might all have kids of their own, but we certainly don’t want to see any of ‘em. With the first movie launching so many careers and the YA crowd generally preferring action heroes their own age (not to mention half the original cast being out of the acting game for the last thirty years) it’s going to be tough convincing studio execs not to pick a new line-up of fresh-faced Goonies to take the lead.

If there was one thing that made The Goonies work, it was an unbridled sense of fun and adventure. From underground water slides and pirate ship rig-swinging to crazy gadgets and Chopper bikes – the first film felt like the coolest theme park ride you’d ever been on. If the sequel is going to work at all, the set pieces need to feel like they were designed by a 12-year-old (or Steven Spielberg).

Long gestating sequels always have a duty to their fans, and that usually means throwing in a few nods, winks and catchphrases to keep everyone happy. That said, the only thing worse than forcing an overweight 11-year-old to jiggle his midrift on camera is forcing a 40-year-old former actor – now a respected attorney – to relive the painful moment again in front of hundred million people.