The Goonies Stars Corey Feldman and Sean Astin Explain Why Their Sequel Pitch Was Rejected

The Goonies stars Corey Feldman and Sean Astin say their 10-page sequel pitch was deemed “too expensive” by original director Richard Donner, who wants Goonies 2 to be “something smaller.”

“Every year, the rumor circulates, ‘Goonies 2 is definitely gonna happen now,’ and we’ll be like, ‘No, it’s not,’” Feldman said at FAN EXPO Boston. “But Richard Donner at one point started fueling it himself and went to the press. He used to call us and tell us we were going back to work, and we’d get all excited, and then it wouldn’t happen [laughs].”

Added Astin, “He’d walk out of a restaurant and tell somebody from TMZ with a wink, and then the next three years we’re answering questions.”

Donner was “joking,” Feldman said. “But eventually, we were like, you know what, maybe we really should come up with a serious idea.”

The two Goonies stars then “sat down, we put our heads together, and we came up with what we thought the fans would really want to see from a sequel,” Feldman said.

When pitching their treatment to Donner and representatives for Goonies screenwriter Chris Columbus and producer Steven Spielberg, “Dick got really excited, and his eyes got really big, and he looked like he was loving it,” said Feldman, who described Donner closing his eyes and visualizing the project.

“He was in the story,” Astin added. “We’re like, ‘We got him.’”

“‘We got him, he’s in, he loves it!’ And then all of a sudden, halfway through, he just opens his eyes again and he goes, ‘Too expensive,’” Feldman said. “And we’re like, what? And he’s like, ‘Too expensive, I want to go smaller.’”

“I remember him saying, ‘Wow, you guys put a lot of effort into that.’ We were like, yeah, we did,” added Astin. “He goes, ‘Yeah, we’re not doing that.’”

Feldman recalled Donner saying he wants to “do something smaller.”

“‘We want to follow more of the family, where are they today people, and keeping it more quaint,’” Feldman said. “I’m like, ‘This is Goonies 2! How do you [go smaller]? But okay, you’re the man.’”

Astin expressed an interest in a 17th century-set sequence depicting a battle involving the Inferno, the pirate ship once captained by One-Eyed Willy, whose treasure was discovered by the Goonies in the 1985 original.

“I love it. But he’s like, ‘It has to really be able to happen.’ I’m like, exactly,” Astin said. “The point is that all the cast have always said, all along, we’d all be happy to participate if they want us to.”

Astin then admitted it “feels more probable now that it’ll be a straight reboot with maybe a couple of cameos.”

“But who knows,” he said. “The audience wants it. I’m shocked that they haven’t been given it.”

Feldman was more hopeful the revival of another seminal ’80s franchise, Ghostbusters, could sway Amblin and Warner Bros. to give The Goonies its own 30-plus-years-later sequel.

“They’re making Ghostbusters 3, come on,” Feldman said. “If they can make Ghostbusters 3, they can make Goonies 2.”