Long-awaited Spinal Tap sequel to feature Paul McCartney and Elton John

Paul McCartney and Elton John are set to make appearances in the upcoming sequel to the cult rockumentary and cultural touchstone for any musician who has ever played a bad gig, This Is Spinal Tap.

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The news was revealed by Rob Reiner, director of the 1984 original and the forthcoming sequel, who told Richard Herring on the latter’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast that filming is due to commence early next year.

“We’re going to start shooting at the end of February, and everybody is back,” Reiner says [via Metal Injection]. “They’ve played Albert Hall, played Wembley Stadium, all over the country and in Europe. They haven’t spent any time together recently.”

Diving into the plot of the upcoming film, he says: “The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away. In reality, Tony Hendra passed away. Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert. She was basically going to sue them if they didn’t.”

“All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert.”

Reiner also revealed that he will reprise his role as film-maker Marty DiBergi in the sequel, adding, “The band was upset with the first film. They thought I did a hatchet job and this was a chance to redeem myself. I am such a big fan and I felt bad they didn’t like what they saw in the first film.”

“When I heard they might get back together, I was a visiting adjunct teacher’s helper at the Ed Wood School of Cinematic Arts. I drop everything to document this final concert.”

News of a Spinal Tap II first broke in May 2022, when the original was screened at the Cannes Film Festival as part of its Cinema de la Plage section.

Reiner said at the time: “I can tell you hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one? For so many years, we said, ‘Nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it, to do it. You want to honour the first one and push it a little further with the story.”