Josh Gad is working hard to bring us a Spaceballs 2, a follow-up to the 1987 classic, Spaceballs. Gad is attached to write, produce, and star in the film. He worked on the script with Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez (Detective Pikachu), Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) is lined up to helm, and he’s got the original film’s writer and director, Mel Brooks backing the whole thing. But he did have to lay some groundwork with Brooks during his pitch meeting.
Gad talked about his nerve-wracking meeting with Brooks during a recent appearance on the Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast, where he revealed that he had to explain the latest Star Wars installments when pitching his take on the follow-up to the beloved parody.
“Mel is incredibly involved. I’ll share a funny story that I haven’t yet shared. When we were pitching him the original conceit for what we wanted to do with the film, at the beginning he goes, ‘I’m just telling you now, I want you to really go into detail because I don’t know a lot about the new Star Wars films.’ And I said, ‘okay.’”
Gad said he pitched Brooks for “40 minutes,” adding:
“It’s literally like, I am a combat vet just going to war in front of one person. I’m sweating, I am getting into every line and every beat and every comedic set piece, every reveal. I’m painting all of it and I’m speaking to how this speaks to a certain Star Wars moment, etc.
“Then there’s silence and at the end of it, he goes, ‘Wow. Josh, it really sounds like you’ve got your finger on the pulse!’ That is the greatest compliment I could have ever gotten, even though there’s no context for it for Mel. He really just trusted everything I had to say.”
Inspired by George Lucas‘ original Star Wars trilogy, Spaceballs followed the titular planet’s President Skroob (Brooks) as he orders the villainous Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) to kidnap Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) in exchange for her oxygen-rich planet Druidia’s air supply. Renegade space pilot Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) comes to the rescue with his half-man, half-dog partner Barf (John Candy).
Gad previously talked about the script saying that it’s “the funniest and best thing [he’s] ever worked on.”
Stay tuned for updates as the film moves toward production.
via: Deadline
