Mel Brooks had one request for the team making the long-awaited Spaceballs sequel: film his part before the other actors began shooting. According to Daphne Zuniga, who played Princess Vespa in the first film, the filmmakers followed his instructions.
Zuniga shared the story during a Melrose Place reunion panel at 90s Con in Hartford, Connecticut, on October 18. “You better film me now because I’m 100,” she recalled Brooks telling the production, according to PEOPLE.
Brooks returns as Yogurt, the gold-colored mentor who teaches Lone Starr to use the Schwartz. He also played President Skroob in the original 1987 comedy, which he directed and cowrote.
Josh Greenbaum is directing Spaceballs: The New One, with a screenplay by Josh Gad, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit. Brooks is among the producers, and Zuniga said he had worked with the writers.
Brooks Recorded Yogurt Without the Gold Makeup
The filmmakers arranged for Brooks to deliver his dialogue in a recording booth, Esquire reported in July. His performance supplies the material for a digitally recreated Yogurt, allowing him to avoid the makeup and heavy prosthetics used in the first movie.
Behind-the-scenes footage shown at San Diego Comic-Con included the recording session. According to San Diego Jewish World, the effects team initially put tracking dots on Brooks’s face. He disliked them, so Greenbaum asked whether the artists could manage without them. They agreed to do the additional work.
By December 2, 2025, Gad had announced that principal photography was finished, as ComingSoon reported at the time. Brooks celebrated his 100th birthday the following June 28.
Brooks also wanted to attend Comic-Con in person. His producing partner Kevin Salter told Esquire that the team talked him out of the trip to avoid the demands of the convention. He appeared through a prerecorded message instead.
Josh Gad Had to Explain the Newer Star Wars Movies to Brooks
Gad began thinking about a sequel after watching the original with his daughter. When Yogurt promised another movie at the end, she wanted to watch it. Gad explained that the sequel was only a joke, then eventually developed an idea he could take to Brooks.
During a 2024 appearance on Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, Gad described spending 40 minutes pitching the story. Brooks had asked for a detailed explanation because he knew little about the newer Star Wars films. Gad walked him through the proposed scenes and the franchise developments they would parody, according to Entertainment Weekly.
“Josh, it really sounds like you’ve got your finger on the pulse!” Brooks told him. Gad described the screenplay as a tribute to Brooks’s wider comedy career as well as the original film.
Greenbaum told the Comic-Con audience that pitching jokes to Brooks could be intimidating. A recording-session blooper showed how directly the veteran filmmaker could reject a suggestion: “Your idea is gonna fuck it all up.”
Rick Moranis Returns, While Bill Pullman’s Son Joins the Family
Moranis is returning as Dark Helmet after largely stepping away from live-action movie roles in the late 1990s to raise his children. He described returning to the production as a “time warp,” telling PEOPLE that the younger actors were around the age he had been during the first production.
His Comic-Con entrance recreated another familiar gag. Costumed Spaceballs soldiers carried giant combs through the audience until they located Moranis beneath his character’s headgear. He emerged to a standing ovation at his first appearance at the convention.
Bill Pullman returns as Lone Starr, while his real-life son Lewis plays Prince Starburst, the son of Lone Starr and Vespa. Lewis initially hesitated about entering a franchise he had grown up watching, but reading the screenplay persuaded him to accept.
Keke Palmer plays Destiny, a palace adviser, and George Wyner returns as Colonel Sandurz. Anthony Carrigan is another newcomer. Gad has also clarified his part: he plays a new mawg, the franchise’s half-man, half-dog species, rather than taking over John Candy’s Barf.
Brooks Joked That the Sequel Money Was in His Basement
At Amazon MGM Studios’ April 15 CinemaCon presentation, Brooks addressed the title audiences had remembered for decades: Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money. In a prerecorded video, he joked that he had finally found the money in his basement, then introduced the new title.
Footage screened at the event included parodies of newer Star Wars movies and Avatar, according to Variety. Those films join an expanded collection of targets for a franchise that originally spoofed Star Wars, Star Trek and Alien.
The sequel’s story takes place approximately 40 years later. In Amazon MGM’s synopsis, Vespa has become queen, Lone Starr is hiding and Starburst is poorly prepared for the task ahead. He and Destiny must find the missing hero and Yogurt while facing a threat determined to bring back everything from the past.
The studio’s deliberately complicated timeline also measures the action against The Devil Wears Prada 2, putting the galaxy’s problems one year after that movie’s events.
Spaceballs: The New One is scheduled to open in U.S. theaters and select international markets on April 23, 2027.