There are probably a lot of people out there who mistakenly think that they’re excited for a potential sequel to The Goonies. These wide-eyed, gentle souls genuinely believe that if Warner Bros. can just get the full cast and creative team back together again, they’ll rekindle the magic of that beloved—albeit cacophonous—1985 action-adventure and bestow upon the viewer, however briefly, a reprieve from the rigors of adulthood. Corey Feldman has some bad/good news for those people: They’ll probably never get the opportunity to be disappointed by a Goonies sequel.
“Richard Donner is 87 years old,” he reasoned to Movieweb. “And it’s like, no one really wants to make it without him. He’s the driving force behind it. He says it’s still alive. But as we all know… When you get to that age, things slow down quite a bit. There is a big possibility that he might not want to keep driving it. So, I think without him, it doesn’t happen. And every day that passes, that he doesn’t do it, there is less and less chance that it is ever going to happen at all.”
Feldman, who played bilingual smartass Clark “Mouth” Devereaux in the original (and probably only) film, judiciously assessed from the negative response to the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot that maybe it’s in everybody’s best interest to just let things be. ”It could have a very bad backlash!,” the 44-year-old actor said. “At the end of the day, and I have said this before, the only way a Goonies sequel happens, and is forgivable to the fan base… is if it is done right. And what does that look like? Obviously, I don’t know. Because I’m not [producer] Steven Spielberg, I’m not [director] Richard Donner, I’m not [writer] Chris Columbus. Those are the guys that make this decision. I know that they are all geniuses. And I implore nothing but the highest levels of respect and trust for their process and what they do. If, at the time, they want my opinion, I will certainly be happy to give it to them.”
The Goonies was instrumental in launching the careers of actors like Feldman, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, and Martha Plimpton. But—despite having once co-written a treatment for a prospective sequel with Astin—Feldman admits that he doesn’t know what it would take to replicate that experience. “I don’t know what that special magic recipe is that they are looking for,” he said. “But I know that everyone’s fear is, ‘What are the odds of capturing magic in a bottle twice?’ And it’s a long shot. At the end of the day, I think if everyone was going to get involved and do it, it would have to be something that was just so magical, so awe-inspiring and breathtaking, that every person said, ‘This is a home run, this is it, we’ve got it, this is the one.’ I know if that script comes in, we’ll be getting that call.”
In other words, it’s probably not going to happen.