There are some movies you don’t just love—you absorb them. They wire themselves into your DNA. Spaceballs is that movie for me. I’ve watched it over a hundred times, I can quote it backward in my sleep, and if you ever need someone to yell “LUDICROUS SPEED—GO!” in public with zero shame, I’m your guy. It’s not just a spoof. It’s gospel. And now, against all odds and logic and basic rules of mortality, Spaceballs 2 is actually happening.
Mel Brooks is 98 years old. Ninety-fucking-eight. At that age, most people are working on their obituary, not mocking Hollywood franchises for a living. But here he is, stepping back into the wigs and robes of President Skroob and Yogurt like it’s still 1987 and comedy hasn’t been surgically sterilized by brand management. The teaser? A perfect throwback crawl riff that name-checks Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Avatar, Jurassic Park, Dune, and every other IP tentpole that’s been choking movie theaters for the past two decades. It ends by reminding us there has only ever been one Spaceballs. Until now.
I should be excited. I am excited. But I’m also nervous. Because you don’t touch Spaceballs lightly. You don’t just toss on a Schwartz ring and hope for the best. The original is lightning in a can—pure Mel, peak parody, and a tightrope walk between stupid and smart that somehow never loses its balance. And the fact is, the cast was magic. John Candy’s Barf? Irreplaceable. Joan Rivers as the voice of Dot Matrix? Iconic. They weren’t just parts of the movie—they were the movie’s beating heart. Without them, the dynamic shifts. You feel the void.
But let’s talk cast, because there’s some wild full-circle shit going on here. Bill Pullman is back as Lone Starr, which already feels like a miracle. And his son, Lewis Pullman—aka Bob from Top Gun: Maverick and Thunderbolts—is playing a new character named Starburst. Now, whether or not the name “Bob” was ever in contention, I hope to Yogurt they make a joke about it. Lean into the meta. Let Lewis be the new “Bob,” a sidekick with baggage and an inferiority complex. Just don’t make him boring. Because the last thing Spaceballs needs is a straight man in a franchise built on chaos.
Josh Gad is one of the creative leads behind this thing, which could go either way. He’s a guy who clearly loves this kind of comedy and has the musical-theater-to-manic-energy pipeline required to keep the tone right. But also, Josh Gad is Hollywood-safe funny. You know, sanitized-funny. And Spaceballs was never safe. It was horny, sweaty, gross, and proudly dumb. If this sequel tries too hard to modernize itself by toning that down or going full self-aware Marvel quip-fest, it’s going to lose the edge that made the original immortal.
Then there’s Rick Moranis. Back as Dark Helmet. That alone makes this whole thing worth it. He walked away from acting decades ago for deeply personal and honorable reasons, and if this is the movie that gets him back in the black cape and fishbowl helmet? That tells me something. It tells me that at least somebody in the production understands the assignment. Give him the screen time. Give him the monologues. Let him play with dolls again.
Still, I can’t lie—part of me is hoping Mel doesn’t just appear in the movie, but actually directs it. Or, if he physically can’t, then let his son Max Brooks step in. That man wrote The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, two of the smartest satirical takes on genre fiction in the past twenty years. The guy has chops. And I’ve seen Max Brooks in action—literally, at a Comic-Con panel where he interviewed George Romero like he’d been raised on Young Frankenstein and Night of the Living Dead in equal measure. He’s his father’s son in the best ways. If Mel can’t run the show from the chair behind the camera, let Max do it from the one next to it.
Of course, we’ve been burned before. Remember that Spaceballs animated series on Spike TV? Of course you don’t. Nobody does. It was lifeless, cynical, and completely missed the point of what made the movie funny in the first place. It tried to recapture lightning by photocopying it. And what we got was a washed-out, direct-to-cable mess that felt like someone let the interns write a parody of a parody. That show was the Dark Helmet version of Family Guy, and I mean that as an insult.
The key here—the only real key—is to stay true to what Spaceballs actually is. Not just a Star Wars spoof. Not just a bunch of one-liners and fart jokes. But a satire of blockbuster culture. A takedown of hype, merchandising, formulaic story arcs, and the myth of the “chosen one” adventure structure. This sequel doesn’t need to be a rehash of the first movie. It needs to mock the state of Hollywood itself. Lampoon everything. Multiverses. Legacy sequels. Streaming wars. AI-generated scripts. Hell, if they don’t make a joke about a “Spaceballs cinematic universe” by the end of Act I, what are we even doing here?
And yeah, I’m holding out hope that Daphne Zuniga comes back. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get one more moment with Tim Russ wielding an afro pick and reminding the galaxy that they still ain’t found shit.
In a world drowning in content, this is the kind of dumb, glorious, loud-ass comedy that could cut through the noise—if they’re willing to go there. If they remember what made the original last nearly four decades in the first place.
So go ahead. Make Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money. And may the Schwartz, the nostalgia, and the gallstones of Mel Brooks be with you.
Hollywood After Dark 