Josh Gad Had To Catch Mel Brooks Up On ‘Star Wars’ Franchise During ‘Spaceballs’ Sequel Pitch

A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Mel Brooks blessed Star Wars fans with the ultimate parody… but he hasn’t kept up with the franchise since.

Josh Gad, who is developing a sequel to Brooks’ Spaceballs (1987), revealed that he had to explain the latest Star Wars installments when pitching his take on the follow-up to the beloved parody.

“Mel is incredibly involved,” he said on the Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast. “I’ll share a funny story that I haven’t yet shared. When we were pitching him the original conceit for what we wanted to do with the film, at the beginning he goes, ‘I’m just telling you now, I want you to really go into detail because I don’t know a lot about the new Star Wars films.’ And I said, ‘okay.'”

Gad said he pitched Brooks for “40 minutes,” adding, “It’s literally like, I am a combat vet just going to war in front of one person. I’m sweating, I am getting into every line and every beat and every comedic set piece, every reveal. I’m painting all of it and I’m speaking to how this speaks to a certain Star Wars moment, etc. Then there’s silence and at the end of it, he goes, ‘Wow. Josh, it really sounds like you’ve got your finger on the pulse!’ That is the greatest compliment I could have ever gotten, even though there’s no context for it for Mel. He really just trusted everything I had to say.”

Inspired by George Lucas‘ original Star Wars trilogy, Spaceballs followed the titular planet’s President Skroob (Brooks) as he orders the villainous Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) to kidnap Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) in exchange for her oxygen-rich planet Druidia’s air supply. Renegade space pilot Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) comes to the rescue with his half-man, half-dog partner Barf (John Candy). Brooks also co-wrote and directed the film.

In June, Deadline confirmed that Gad is attached to produce and star in a Spaceballs sequel for Amazon MGM Studios from director Josh Greenbaum and a script by Gad, Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez. Brooks is also producing.

Gad said in November that the first draft is complete, noting, “Everybody who’s read it has been blown away. The process of working on this with and alongside Mel Brooks has been one of the highlights of my career.”

With six more installments in Lucas’ original Star Wars franchise, as well as multiple spin-off films and shows, Gad and his co-writers have plenty of material at their disposal.