CANNES, France -- One of the most memorable lines -- and Rob Reiner's personal favorite -- of "This Is Spinal Tap" goes: "There's a fine line between stupid and clever."
You could say the same thing about the classic 1984 mockumentary. It could have so easily not panned out. No one in Hollywood thought it was a good idea. It was saved by Norman Lear who, after Reiner made his pitch and departed, is said to have turned to the executives in the room and announced: "Who's going to tell him he can't do it?"
The movie, itself, has no script, just a four-page outline. It was almost entirely improvised. Reiner's first cut of the film was seven hours long. Even the jokes they did have planned -- like the infamous "these amps goes to 11" scene -- were filmed off-the-cuff.
"Quick!" Reiner recalls shouting. "Make an amp with an extra number on it!"
But what teetered so close to never panning out in the first place, has of course become one of the most beloved comedies of the '80s and a massive influence to countless mockumentaries that have followed. It is even in the Library of Congress.
Now, Reiner and company want to get the band back together for a sequel. Reiner was at the Cannes Film Festival for an anniversary screening on the beach of "This Is Spinal Tap" and to drum up excitement for the just-announced sequel that will also see Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest reprise their roles as band members David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel.
"The bar is high. There's no question about it," Reiner said in an interview by the beach in Cannes. "And we wrestled with that forever, whether or not we should even bother to do it. But we had an idea. Over the years, people have come up and said, 'Oh, you should do a sequel.' We've always said, 'No, no, no.' But as time went by, we finally had something we think can work. And we'll find out!"
Reiner assures that this time, too, there will be no screenplay. He will depend on the still sharp improvisational talents of his cast, who have carried on Spinal Tap -- a fictional band turned into a semi-real one -- in occasional concerts in the intervening decades.
Many of Reiner's most beloved films are seemingly sequel-proof. Recapturing the tone of "The Princess Bride"? Inconceivable. (Writer William Goldman did try, though.) And it's just as hard to imagine the magic of "Stand by Me" or "When Harry Met Sally" being captured a second time. But "Spinal Tap," Reiner thinks, isn't done rocking.