The Goonies star Corey Feldman says a Goonies II can’t happen without original director Richard Donner, who is directing the final installment in the Lethal Weapon franchise. Feldman and his co-star Sean Astin previously pitched a sequel that Donner deemed “too expensive,” but the castmates believed as recently as 2019 that a 35-plus years later follow-up would happen “someday.” But Feldman, who played Mouth in the 1985 film executive produced by Steven Spielberg, says the 91-year-old Donner is doing Lethal Weapon 5 as his “swan song” — and there will be no Goonies II without him.
“Well, Sean Astin and Josh Brolin want a sequel but you know. It’s one of those powers that be things,” Feldman told Dread Central. “Every time I thought, ‘Okay it’s really gonna happen,’ I’ve been let down and had my heart broken. I think I probably believed it the most over the pandemic. Because I thought ‘Okay, it’s [The Goonies] 25th anniversary, we did two reunions in one year, we went back and read the script together. And [screenwriter] Chris Columbus himself even said on the call with all of us, and in subsequent emails, ‘Guys I’m so inspired, I’m actually writing again. Like I’m gonna do this. We’re doing this.’ And then, nothing.”
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Feldman and Astin reunited with Ke Huy Quan on the convention circuit in 2019 before the entire cast — including Feldman, Astin, Quan, Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton, Kerri Green, Joe Pantoliano, and Robert Davi — participated in a virtual Goonies reunion amid coronavirus pandemic shutdowns in early 2020.
“I don’t know what the hell it is. But all I know is that when I found out my dear friend Richard Donner had signed on to do Lethal Weapon 5 as his swan song, well that pretty much sewed up the rumor mill right there. It’s done,” Feldman said. “We cant make [The Goonies 2] without [Donner]. And [Donner’s] off shooting guns with the Lethal Weapon people.”
“And that is the shame of it. Because, just like when we did the Zooms last year, I mean it doesn’t matter how many grey hairs everybody’s got on their faces, the love is still there. And the family feeling is still there,” added Feldman. “And I know that secretly, each of us weeps at night wishing that there was that magical [The Goonies 2] script landing on our doorstep the next day. But unfortunately and sadly, it still has not arrived.”
During the Goonies virtual reunion in April 2020, Spielberg explained why a Goonies II still hasn’t happened:
“Chris and Dick and I and Lauren [Shuler Donner, producer] have had a lot of conversations about it, and every couple of years we come up with an idea, but then it doesn’t hold water,” Spielberg told the cast over Zoom. “The problem is the bar that all of you raised on this genre. I don’t think we’ve really successfully been able to find an idea that is better than The Goonies we made in the ’80s.”
