Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap sequel is real, is already filming, and has even more famous cameos

People in Hollywood love to talk a big game when it comes to highly anticipated projects that everyone wants them to make, but for every 10 or 100 failed sequels that never get past the “we’re having meetings about it” stage, there’s maybe one George Miller who actually hauls a bunch of miserable actors into the desert and makes them hate each other in pursuit of a perfect and beautiful masterpiece. Rob Reiner’s sequel to This Is Spinal Tap might not be the next Mad Max: Fury Road, but much like that movie, it has defied the odds and is really going to happen—and, also like Fury Road, it will feature at least one weirdo with an electric guitar.

The movie, which doesn’t have an official title yet, was announced back in 2022, with original cast members Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest all confirmed to return along with original director Rob Reiner (plus Reiner’s character, film-within-a-film filmmaker Marty DeBergi). Then, late last year, Reiner revealed that Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Garth Brooks would make cameos in the movie, which could be construed as proof that the movie is real, but we’ve been burned by Hollywood enough times to know that a movie isn’t real until cameras are rolling.

And hey: Cameras are rolling on the Spinal Tap sequel! That was announced today in a press released from Castle Rock Entertainment, which said that production “recently began” in New Orleans and that Questlove and Trisha Yearwood have joined the crew of famous people. (Hopefully Questlove isn’t drumming for the Tap, because the band doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to keeping drummers alive.)

Spinal Tap 2, assuming it’s real and does come out, will be about the band reuniting for one final concert after a 15-year hiatus. Of course, this year marks 40 years since the movie came out, which is much more than 15, so they’re either doing a “everyone is much older than they’re supposed to be” or the new movie will reveal that there were decades of Spinal Tap adventures we didn’t get to see onscreen (are the follow-up albums and shows they’ve done since the movie came out canonical?).

The movie was supposed to come out this year to meet the anniversary, but it has most likely been pushed back due to a delay caused by the SAG-AFTRA strike.