Hollywood gave up on old-school comedy a long time ago.
Then the man behind Blazing Saddles turned 100 and marched right back onto a movie set.
But before anyone yelled action, Mel Brooks handed down one order his co-stars couldn’t argue with.
A Century-Old Comedy Legend Jumped to the Front of the Line
Brooks directed, co-wrote, produced, and starred in Spaceballs, his 1987 sendup of Star Wars that also took shots at Star Trek, Alien, and just about every other sci-fi franchise on the video store shelf.
He was 60 when it opened. He’s 100 now, and he still wanted a piece of the sequel.
Amazon MGM Studios plans to release Spaceballs: The New One in theaters on April 23, 2027. And Brooks did the math on that date faster than any studio accountant.
Daphne Zuniga, who plays Princess Vespa, told the story at a Melrose Place panel during 90s Con. “We filmed ‘Spaceballs: The New One’ that Mel Brooks worked with the writers on. He’s a big influence in it. He filmed his part already before we shot,” Zuniga said. “It was his idea: ‘You better film me now because I’m 100.’”
“So we did,” she added.
Most Hollywood stars squabble over trailer size and billing order. Brooks cared about one thing, getting his scenes done while he could still crack wise on camera, and the production went along with it.
He has outlived plenty of the folks who made the first picture with him. John Candy, who played the half-man, half-dog Barf, died in 1994. The sequel goes forward without him, which feels a little like a reunion dinner with an empty chair at the table.
Dark Helmet Climbs Back Into the Oversized Bucket
The returning lineup reads like a VHS cover from the Reagan years. Rick Moranis puts the giant helmet back on as Lord Dark Helmet. Bill Pullman returns as Lone Starr, now married to Zuniga’s Vespa. George Wyner comes back too.
Pullman’s real-life son, Lewis Pullman, plays the couple’s son, the prince. Keke Palmer, Josh Gad, and Anthony Carrigan round out the newcomers.
Josh Greenbaum directs this time instead of Brooks. Gad wrote the script with Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez, and the crew shot the film in Sydney, Australia.
But for a lot of fans, Moranis is the real story. The Honey, I Shrunk the Kids star walked away from acting for roughly three decades. When he showed up at San Diego Comic-Con in full Dark Helmet gear, the crowd in Hall H gave him a standing ovation.
And he still had his timing. “I started talking to Mel about a sequel in 1989, and we kept talking about it. I was just negotiating!” Moranis joked from the stage.
He admitted the whole thing felt strange at first. “I felt like I was in a time warp, but I was in that outfit and wearing the helmet,” Moranis said. “And it just felt very strange to be honest with you. But it started to feel really good and I really started to love it.”
Brooks has his own memories of Moranis on that first set, and they hit him in the wallet. “Rick Moranis cost me a lot of money,” Brooks told Fox News Digital. “When we were filming, the whole crew kept laughing at his antics and ruining take after take!”
Brooks couldn’t resist one more gag when Amazon unveiled the title. “It’s just like the old one, but it’s newer,” he said in a video clip. “That’s why it’s called ‘The New One.’”
Can Mel Brooks Comedy Survive the Scolds Running Hollywood?
But here’s where longtime fans might start to sweat a little.
Brooks himself has warned for years that today’s Hollywood would never green-light the kind of movies that made him a legend. Back in 2017, he told BBC Radio 4 there would be “Never Blazing Saddles . . . because we have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy.”
He made the same case to PBS host Tavis Smiley. “Political correctness restricts and restrains humor,” Brooks said. “Humor has to be very crazy and very free and very liberated. And dangerous!”
That’s not some grumpy old man yelling at the TV. Brooks served in the US Army during World War II, came home, and spent the rest of his career mocking Hitler, bigots, and pompous fools of every stripe. He turned ridicule into a weapon, and he aimed it at people who deserved it.
Contrast that with the entertainment industry of the last decade or so. Studios swapped punchlines for sermons. Comics started checking with sensitivity readers before telling a joke. Audiences noticed, and plenty of them simply stopped showing up.
And now the keys to one of Brooks’ most beloved franchises belong to Amazon, a Big Tech giant that doesn’t exactly have a reputation for letting edgy material slip through untouched. A corporate studio could easily sand the rough corners off this thing until nothing funny is left.
Then again, maybe that worry runs a bit ahead of the evidence. The first footage Amazon showed at CinemaCon featured Dark Helmet standing at a urinal next to a towering blue creature lifted straight out of Avatar. That gag sounds a lot more like Mel Brooks than a corporate focus group.
So the jury is out until April 2027. If The New One keeps the irreverent spirit of the original, Hollywood might finally figure out that moviegoers want to laugh instead of getting lectured for two hours.
If it doesn’t, the 100-year-old who demanded to go first will have already said his piece about who killed comedy.
Either way, Brooks made sure he got his scenes in.
Sources:
Fox News, “Mel Brooks, 100, asked ‘Spaceballs’ team to film his scenes first due to age”
The Hollywood Reporter, “Spaceballs sequel title The New One”
Dark Horizons, “Mel Brooks Reveals ‘Spaceballs’ Sequel Title”
AFP via Philstar, “100-year-old Mel Brooks lands at Comic-Con for ‘Spaceballs’ sequel”
WOKV/Cox Media Group, “Mel Brooks announces title for ‘Spaceballs’ sequel”
Den of Geek, “Blazing Saddles: An Old Western About Living in America Today”
Mediaite, “Mel Brooks: I Would Never Get Away with Using ‘N-Word’ on Screen Today”