He gave us our first (then) Robin Hood who spoke with a British accent. He gave us the showstopper ‘Springtime for Hitler’ in The Producers and won the Oscar for it. He gave us monsters with stage frights and vampires who have daymares. And he is coming back 30 years after his last film in 1995 to give us the long-awaited and oft-whispered-about sequel to one of the best parodies ever — Spaceballs.
Yes, comic legend Mel Brooks, only 98 years old, is set to reprise his role as Yogurt, the wise-cracking, merchandising-obsessed sage from Spaceballs in the recently announced Spaceballs 2. This “Non-Prequel Non-Reboot Sequel Part Two but with Reboot Elements Franchise Expansion Film”, as it is described by those who have read the script, according to Deadline, scheduled for release in 2027, has sent fans into a tizzy about what Brooks could be spoofing this time.
When Spaceballs, the Star Wars spoof, released (1987), Brooks had just three movies to work with and he still went boldly where George Lucas would never — into a universe where Darth Vader has a ludicrously large helmet called Dark Helmet, Yoda is a dairy product called Yogurt, and no moment is too sacred to be milked for a joke (or merch). Since then there have been — as the introduction crawl to the Spaceballs 2 announcement noted — endless sequels, prequels, TV shows in the Star Wars world alone, and the Hollywood blockbuster is ripe for some Brooks-esque skewering, from superheroes to action juggernauts, CGI explosion to the cameo culture.
Brooks is reportedly not writing or directing the movie. Josh Greenbaum takes over directing duties while the writing is credited to Benji Samit, Dan Hernandez and Josh Gad. But they would be a fool not to pick up some pointers from Brooks, even though most of his parodies come from a love of the genres he is spoofing, and a lot has happened since he last made a movie.
Brooks’s classics are like the greatest hits of parody: each one sillier, snappier, and more quotable than the last. The Producers (1967) wasn’t just a spoof, it was an elegant two-step of bad taste and Broadway camp. Who else could make ‘Springtime for Hitler’ a showstopper and get away with it? He even won an Oscar for writing that one. Yes, an Oscar, for a comedy about conmen banking on a Nazi flop.
Then came Young Frankenstein, his affectionate riff on the classic horror genre. Shot in black and white with a reverence that bordered on absurdity, it gave us Gene Wilder, monsters with stage fright, and a tap-dancing sequence so ridiculous it was almost sublime.
A still from 'Young Frankenstein' IMDb
Blazing Saddles, a Western where the hero is a Black sheriff, the villain is white bureaucracy, and the final act breaks through the fourth wall like a horse through a window, was gleefully anarchic. Brooks made a film about racism that was both offensive and progressive, crass and clever — a politically incorrect masterpiece that left no cliché unpunched.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) came just when we were getting too serious about our medieval heroes. Brooks gave us Cary Elwes with a mullet, Dave Chappelle as Ahchoo (“Bless you!”) and manly men in tights.
In Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), Brooks gave us Leslie Nielsen as the Count who struggled more with chairs and carpets than with stakes and garlic. It was Brooks in full slapstick form — sharp, shameless, and completely unbothered by logic or gravity.
A still from 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It' IMDb
But the crown jewel has to be Spaceballs, which had a villain so incompetent he had to lift his enormous mask to breathe, a wise-cracking Yoda-like Yoghurt whose only interest is the Spaceballs: The Merchandise, and much more lunacy than George Lucas could dream up. It was hilarious. It was genius. And now, almost 40 years later, it’s getting a sequel.
And the galaxy is begging to be spoofed. Because let’s be honest, the original Star Wars trilogy had barely cooled when the last Spaceballs film came out. Since then, we’ve had three more trilogies, two dozen spinoffs, and at least one baby alien that caused a global plushie shortage.
A still from 'Spaceballs' IMDb
But Star Wars isn’t the only galaxy worth spoofing. Since Brooks last made a movie, we’ve entered the age of the Cinematic Universe, where every film is either a sequel, a prequel, a soft reboot, or a “gritty reimagining” of something we didn’t even like the first time. The MCU has stretched across multiverses, timelines, and tone-deaf cameos. The DCEU has imploded and reformed more often than a DC villain. And all of it is delivered with such high-stakes, end-of-the-world intensity that nobody seems to remember what fun looks like anymore.
Then there’s Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious, franchises that have now entirely abandoned physics and entered the realm of magical realism. Tom Cruise has run so much he’s evolved into a kinetic energy source. Vin Diesel talks about “family” like it’s a cult. And in both cases, the cars defy gravity more often than the plot does.
In comes Brooks, with his rubber masks and rubberier logic, ready to burst the CGI bubble. He doesn’t care about being “correct”, but he’s never been cruel. His spoofs punch up, not down. He loves what he mocks, and he mocks what needs deflating, whether they are egos, stupidity, fascists or institutions that take themselves too seriously.
Because if anyone has earned the right to roast the galaxy, it’s the man who turned fascists into song-and-dance men, gave Robin Hood a tight-fitting ego (and tighter tights), and made vampires uncool before Twilight ever got there.
May Schwartz be with him!
