I'm going to be straight with you. Some movies, some moments, they just exist. They're these perfect, sealed-off things in time, and you don't touch 'em. You just don't. The Goonies is one of those. A little bit of '80s magic—from a Spielberg story, no less—that has somehow, against all odds, managed to survive decades of nostalgia-fueled sequel bait without being… well, tainted.
And you know who gets it? Josh Brolin. The guy who played Brand, the older brother. A character who, let's be honest, probably wouldn't have made it to the end credits of a modern-day horror film. But here we are. Decades later, Brolin is a certified genre heavyweight, a sci-fi villain, a hardboiled a-lister. Yet he's still asked about that movie. And his answer? It's perfect. It's exactly what you want to hear.
In a recent chat with Entertainment Tonight, Brolin was asked about the rumored sequel, and his comments hit the nail right on the head. “The trepidation that I have is that you release something else that taints that,” he said. He's talking about his own memories, sure, but he's also talking about all of our memories. He wants to protect the experience. The classic status. The fact that this movie, about a bunch of kids looking for One-Eyed Willy's treasure to save their homes from foreclosure, still resonates generation after generation. It's all everything good about it. And why risk messing with that?
I remember seeing The Goonies in a re-release a few years back. The theater was packed. Kids were laughing at the same lines I did when I was their age. It's a special kind of cinematic alchemy, and the idea of a half-baked sequel—some cash grab where they're all grown up with walkers and bad eyesight, as Brolin so dryly jokes—is just… a bummer.
But here's the most interesting part, the real story here. Brolin isn't the only one who feels this way. It turns out Steven Spielberg himself is the one holding the line. Brolin mentioned that there have been “five scripts so far through the years” and Spielberg has turned down every single one. “Me being picky, Spielberg is picky, and he has a reason to be because he has great taste,” Brolin said.
This isn't just Brolin's opinion. Ke Huy Quan, who recently returned to the spotlight in a big, beautiful way and talked about a sequel in February 2025, confirmed as much. He stated that “in the last four years, Warner Bros. has tried. We've hired numerous writers, and there are multiple scripts out there. But somehow, I guess Spielberg feels that none of them lives up to the original.”
This is a good sign. A great sign, actually. It tells us that if a sequel ever happens, it won't be because a studio just wanted to make a quick buck. It'll be because someone, somewhere, finally wrote a story good enough to earn the blessing of the guy who helped create the original. The master.
Even with reports about a script from Potsy Ponciroli floating around from February 2025, Brolin seems pretty quiet on the subject. And that silence, I think, says it all. The man has seen the scripts. He knows the master's taste. And he's got a great memory to protect. We all do. Maybe some stories are better left alone. A perfect, little treasure.
What do you all think? Should The Goonies be left as a standalone classic, or do you think a sequel could live up to the hype? Let us know in the comments below.
