The Goonies turns 40 next year. For many of us, it remains the definitive 80s kids’ movie. If you were a kid in the 80s – or 90s, or perhaps even the 00s – you’ll have seen it numerous times and will still get a little shiver of nostalgia when you come across it today. It regularly appears in polls of the top movies of all time, and it often tops polls for greatest kids’ or family movies.
It’s also arguably a movie that many fans believe should be off-limits for a sequel, reboot, remake, or some other modern reimagining. There are a handful of movies that fall into this category. Some are kids’ movies like The Princess Bride and E.T., whereas others are adult-orientated untouchables like Goodfellas and Apocalypse Now. They fall into that category of being something you love but don’t want to see anymore of.
The Goonies Sequel Hoax
Yet, talk of the Goonies sequel has refused to go away. Back in April 2023, pranksters made a very convincing poster stating that The Goonies: Curse of One-Eyed Willy would be coming in the summer of 2026. It went as far as telling us the director, Sam Raimi. Despite being widely shared on social media and being picked up by a few publications, it was clearly a fake. But the reaction to it – split between joy and dismay – told us a lot about modern Hollywood and this endless desire to tap into our nostalgia.
Everyone knows that we are in this period where Hollywood puts a huge amount of stock into the notion of beloved IP (intellectual property). Some franchises feel suitable for sequels and reboots: Jurassic Park, for example. Others, like Ghostbusters, Gladiator, and Beetlejuice, all of which have been rebooted recently, feel like the studios are trying to catch lightning in a bottle all over again – and that rarely works.
Goonies Games are Popular
The Goonies is hugely popular, of course. It’s not exactly Star Wars or Marvel in terms of fandom and merchandise. Yet, it retains its exposure. DC released a comic book to celebrate the movie’s 25th anniversary in 2007. There was also a fan-made PC game released in the same year. Blueprint, a notable developer of branded slots, released a handful of official Goonies slots, which can be found on top online casino platforms. The games are hugely popular among slot players and feature real images and clips from the movie. But overall, there is that draw of the movie occupying a role in our childhoods.
Yet, even if we argue that The Goonies is somewhat still in the public consciousness from an IP standpoint, the argument against the sequel is not one based on popularity; it’s based on timing. Many of us can’t separate the fact that The Goonies is not just a movie about childhood; it’s a movie that came out during our childhood. It’s an 80s movie that transports us back to that time. It catches a certain zeitgeist wrapped in nostalgia. Because of this deep emotional connection, the idea of a sequel can be unsettling.
A Constant Revisiting of the Past
It creates this paradoxical situation where you have something you are very fond of, but you don’t really want to see any more of it. Even though it might not be true, in our heads, a sequel would feel like it would diminish the original. It’s one of the reasons you see outright anger when sequels or reboots of classic movies are mooted. It feels like something is being taken away from the original. This is particularly relevant when the sequel introduces new characters, which would surely be the only option for The Goonies. Hollywood tries to frame this as a passing of the torch moment (see Ghostbusters: Afterlife), yet viewers who grew up with the original feel somewhat cheated.
Maybe they will do a reboot or sequel of The Goonies at some point, although it’s looking unlikely since the death of Richard Donner in 2021, and maybe it would turn out to be a great movie. There are also questions over what is happening with The Goonies Our Time, a Disney+ series that was mooted but seems to have gone quiet. Yet, the question that Hollywood should be asking is not whether it should return to a story about a bunch of ’80s kids because it was popular; it should be asking where all the original stories about the kids of today are. At some point, this endless revisiting of the past is going to feel stale.
FOR FANBOYS, BY FANBOYS
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