There are a lot of reasons This Is Spinal Tap is getting a sequel this year, but none of them matter if Harry Shearer wasn’t so pissed off about royalties.
Back in 2016, Shearer filed a $125 million lawsuit against Vivendi and StudioCanal, alleging a breach of contract over the 1984 mockumentary. The original production agreement called for Shearer, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and director/star Rob Reiner to receive 40 percent of net receipts.
Despite the comedy’s enduring popularity and the fake band’s sold-out concerts, the four comedians received only $81 in merchandising income and $98 in musical sales income to show for three decades’ worth of profits. The reason: Hollywood accountants are scumbags. Shearer’s suit figured he and his buddies were due something closer to $400 million.
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A settlement was reached in 2020, according to Hollywood Reporter, and as these things often go, the financial terms were kept under wraps. However, in addition to receiving more compensation, Shearer and company also clawed back the rights to the film, meaning they could make another Tap movie whenever they wanted. More cash!
Not so fast, says Reiner. “We thought, well, should we do some kind of a sequel?” he told Entertainment Weekly. “And we said, nah, we’ve done it. We’ve done it.”
The four would meet from time to time and bounce ideas around, but they never came up with a concept that made sense. Shearer, McKean and Guest hadn’t played together as Spinal Tap in 15 years. Based on that reality, Reiner wondered, “What could bring them back together?”
The answer, improbably, came from the Netflix hit Stranger Things. The show’s producers incorporated Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” (a song that only reached #30 on the U.S. charts in 1985) into one of its latter seasons, creating an out-of-left-field career renaissance for Bush. The light bulb went on for Reiner and friends.
“We got to get some rock star to sing one of their songs, like joking around at a soundcheck and somebody captures it on iPhone, puts it up on TikTok, it goes viral,” Reiner said. “And all of a sudden, ‘Hey, Spinal Tap.’ So that became the basis of what we did.”
The unexpected surge in popularity prompts a final Spinal Tap concert. “We created this situation where there’s bad blood,” Reiner said. “They haven’t talked to each other, and you find out in the course of the film what that bad blood is about.”
The cast members are well aware that the original film set a nearly impossible standard to live up to, which is another reason they resisted a sequel for so long. “It’s a high bar, and I’m not here to say that we surpassed that,” Reiner explained to EW.
But the sequel, out in September, has the goods, Reiner promised. “It works, it satisfies it, and it works. Listen, the purists are going to say, ‘Hey, shut your mouth. Get out of here.’ But it works. It does work.”
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