Since its release in 2016, Netflix’s flagship sci-fi Stranger Things has had a significant impact on the world, but an exclusive revelation from an iconic Hollywood director to ComicBook has just revealed the strangest impact of all. Because, unexpectedly, the Netflix show has inspired the resurrection of a 40 year old movie franchise that looked dead and buried.
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England’s loudest and most punctual band of the last 40 years, Spinal Tap, busts back into theaters July 5th (get your tickets here via Fathom), and much to our delight, there’s even more to come from the makers of the iconic mockumentary This is Spinal Tap. The film, released over 4 decades ago, has not only garnered critical praise, but has earned a spot in both the Library of Congress and National Film Registry. Director Rob Reiner detailed what a long-awaited, upcoming sequel will look like to Comicbook‘s Chris Killian, during which he revealed the role Stranger Things played on its existence.
While the idea of another Spinal Tap movie seems “too good to be true”, according to Killian (speaking for all of us), Reiner revealed that initially he and co-creators Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean (who all also play the members of Spinal Tap) were reticent to make a sequel. Reiner clamed “No, we’re not going anywhere near it,” was their response to a sequel for decades. Yet, Shearer suing Sony to get the film’s rights back, the real-life death of the actor who played the band’s fictional manager, Tony Hendra, and the resurgence around Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” on Stranger Things sparked the idea between Reiner and his collaborators to continues Spinal Tap’s story.
Reiner and his collaborators wanted to play with the fact that the band Spinal Tap had faded into obscurity since we saw them last on their disastrous U.S. tour, and the band members went their separate ways. “They haven’t played together in fifteen years. Let’s say they haven’t spoken to each other in fifteen years,” Reiner posited. “There’s bad blood between them.”
“In reality, their manager…he actually died,” Reiner said, referring to the passing of actor Tony Hendra in 2021. “So we thought, what if he bequeathed a contract to his daughter? And she had in this contract one last concert. But then what’s the point of it? It’s worthless because they hadn’t played in 15 years. Nobody knew about them. They’re done.”
Enter Stranger Things and the now iconic scene in Season 4 where Max plays “Running Up That Hill” to shield her from Venca’s mind-controlling powers. “And then we remembered that Kate Bush, had done a song that they used on Stranger Things, and all of a sudden there was a resurgence.” Reiner shared. “We said, wait a minute…what if, one of their songs, some big rock star or big music star is screwing around at a soundcheck? Does one of their songs somebody films it on on an iPhone, they throw them up on TikTok, goes viral, and all of a sudden they become viable again? That became the idea for the film.”
While audiences and filmmakers alike decry the deluge of sequels, spinoffs, and reboots that now populate the media landscape, the Spinal Tap sequel, with its roots in actual events, feels uniquely of the moment. Reiner went on to share it was that idea specifically that made him and the other filmmakers agree to make a second Spinal Tap film, otherwise they would have “let it be”.
The remastered, remixed, and 4K version of This is Spinal Tap returns to theaters July 5th.
