Yesterday at CinemaCon, 99-year-old comedy legend Mel Brooks revealed the title to the upcoming sequel to his 1978 sci-fi parody Spaceballs. Unfortunately, it’s not the one we were promised.
In the original film, when Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) bids farewell to the wise Master Yogurt (Mel Brooks), Lone Starr asks, “I wonder, will we ever see each other again?” In reply, Yogurt says, “Who knows? God willing, we’ll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.”
Yet in Mel Brooks’ CinemaCon video, which was later released on social media, Brooks announced that the Spaceballs sequel — which he produced and co-wrote — will be called Spaceballs: The New One. In an effort to explain the change, Brooks jokes, “I found the money. There it is, the money. It was in my basement,” and the camera cuts to a bag overflowing with cash.
The video is funny and Spaceballs: The New One, while a good deal safer for a mainstream audience, is a fine title. Yet, I can’t help but feel a bit cheated that we’re not actually getting a movie titled Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money. I guess I should have figured. Even for a comedy, big studios are never willing to give films boldly funny, self-depreciating titles like that. Either some suit said, “Mel, we can’t actually call the movie that,” or because they hired a focus group of unfunny morons to prove a point that MGM likely knew when it first announced the project back in 2024 — that the movie was never going to be named Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.
Disney did a similar thing with the Muppets back in 2014. After 2011’s The Muppets was a big success, the direct follow-up was supposed to be called The Muppets Again. The opening number for the movie, “We’re Doing a Sequel” even makes direct reference to the original title and has a lot of funny lyrics about how this movie is “more of the same.” Yet, some Disney suit came along (the director even confirmed as much) and said, “We can’t actually call the movie that.” Instead, Muppets fans got the fine, but somewhat generically titled Muppets Most Wanted.
For Spaceballs, however, I was hoping things would be different, not only because it would pay off a 40-year-old joke, but a boldly funny title for what will likely be Brooks’ last film would have been a fitting tribute to the comedy icon.
Spaceballs: The New One will arrive in theaters on April 23, 2027.
