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When The Goonies was first released in 1985, the swashbuckling kids’ adventure became a resounding box office hit. Audiences were charmed by Mikey (Sean Astin), Data (Ke Huy Quan), Chunk (Jeff Cohen) and Mouth’s (Corey Feldman) rambunctious personalities as the self-styled Goonies, who were desperately trying to save their homes in Astoria, Oregon, from being sold off by a property development company.
Steven Spielberg is rumoured to have come up with the idea for The Goonies when he wondered what kids got up to on rainy days. Apparently the answer was daring exploits worthy of Indiana Jones involving a dastardly family of ex-cons and a hidden shipwreck heaving with jewels. It all combined to make a touching film about the power of friendship that was also rip-roaring good fun.
Forty years later, the franchise lives on with the announcement by Warner Bros earlier this year that a sequel is finally in the works. We look back with the cast and crew to find out how the film has endured as a cult classic.
Spielberg decided to hand directing duties over to Richard Donner, with Chris Columbus writing the script. Auditions were held in 1984 with some actors paired together in “chemistry reads”.
Sean Astin, Mikey (The Goonies’ 13-year-old leader): We started doing the scene. At some point, I messed up the line and went: “Shit.” They didn’t seem bothered by it. I might have messed up a second time. Steven walked out. Afterwards, he said he walked out because I was nervous, and he didn’t want me to be nervous any more. He said: “You had the job before you opened your mouth.”
Kerri Green, Andy (a sweet high-school cheerleader who joins the Goonies’ treasure hunt): It was an improvisation with an actor who was trying out for Stef [Andy’s quick-witted friend, who would be played by Martha Plimpton]. They said talk about boys. So I kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on the couch. When the audition was over, my shoes were gone. I cracked up because Dick [Donner] was playing a joke.
Joe Pantoliano, Francis Fratelli (one of the main baddies and a member of the Fratelli crime family): I had worked with Robert Davi [who was cast as Francis’s opera-singing brother Jake] on two occasions. We had a combative relationship. We’re sitting next to each other in the audition and Davi says: “Joey wears a hairpiece.” I thought that was rather mean and insensitive, but I went with it. So I lowered it [on my head] and said: “Yeah, if you want me to look younger, I can.” They liked that we were always trying to one-up each other.
Filming started in October 1984, mainly on location in Astoria. Spielberg took an uncredited role as second unit director.
Green: The actual shoot was extremely high energy. Donner had this big, booming voice. He would be yelling: “Hip hop, hip hop, find your mark, you goddamn kids.” He believed in a lot of improv. There was a lot of allowing us to just be ourselves. A lot of times it got a little chaotic – he’d have to rein it back. It was supposed to be a three-month shoot and it turned into five months because of that.
Pantoliano: Donner was very open, so anybody could come to dailies [to watch the unedited footage]. The kids would come and there would be pizza and soda, a lot of laughing and roughhousing.
Astin: We’d all hug Dick and climb all over him like he was Santa Claus. Steven came in to direct things like the kiss and the scene in the wishing well. He was really quiet. He’d flick a finger and people would set stuff up. They were a perfect combo.
Nick McLean, cinematographer: Some of the best stuff in the movie is the second unit stuff that Spielberg did. The big slide [that the Goonies ride to get to the cave with the ship], that was Spielberg’s idea.
Michael O’Shea, camera operator: When we started to fall behind, we’d have to work on weekends, too. They would invite you to bring your kids. My daughter was the same age as Josh [Brolin, who played Mikey’s older brother Brand]. When she came, Josh went: “Oh my God, she’s beautiful.” So what happened is my daughter went to her high-school prom with Josh.
There was a fun atmosphere on set …
Green: It really was like a family. Josh, me and Martha, the three of us were like the older siblings, and the boys were like the younger siblings. We loved one another. We also fought, bickered and drove each other crazy. Then we were all best friends. For kids to be together for five months, that’s a lifetime at that stage of life.
Pantoliano: Ke’s mum, his brothers and sisters would come every day. She would make this great Vietnamese food on a wok and a Bunsen burner.
Astin: The guys would all wrestle. Josh was charmed by us. It had to be annoying for him. I mean, literally, just the decibels. He was the natural leader of the group. Corey and I got on each other’s nerves. He was Mouth on screen and off. He’s got a big heart, so we were brothers, but we definitely scrapped a little bit together.
O’Shea: Joe, Robert and Anne [Ramsey, who played Mama Fratelli] were great. You believed that they were family. The friction between Robert and Joe would play off screen, too. Davi would pull Joey’s toupee back. Anne was funny.
Some of the crew ended up playing minor roles, including Donner as a police officer and Jennie Lew Tugend, the director’s executive assistant, as Data’s mother, Mrs Wang.
McLean: We couldn’t get actors in one day because there was a big storm. Spielberg came to me and said: ‘You have to play this part [Mouth’s dad, Mr Devereaux]. You’re the right height, the right weight, right age.’ It wasn’t much of a performance.
The Inferno, a full-scale pirate ship measuring 32 metres (105ft), was created for the film. It took two and a half months to build and was modelled on the ship from Errol Flynn’s 1940 film The Sea Hawk.
O’Shea: Donner didn’t show that to the kids until the day we shot it.
Green: They had us come in backwards and said: “When I say action, I want you to dip under the water, count to three and then come up.” Of course, it was all: “Oh, my f-ing God and holy s-h-i-t.” They turned the entire soundstage into a pool. That was enormous.
Astin: It was only the water-facing half. You could go into it, but if you went to the other side, it was sheared off, and you’d walk down steps and out of stage 16. It was genuinely spectacular.
Donner and Spielberg were fond of playing pranks and a pranking epidemic spread through the cast and crew.
Pantoliano: Davi was very proud that his parking spot was next to Spielberg’s so I stole his parking nameplate. Then he got even with me. I was lying down and I heard this banging. He’d nailed my dressing room door shut. They had to come and pry my door open.
McLean: There’s a scene that was never seen. There was an octopus [an attack that Data mentions at the end of the film], and we’d spent a week trying to photograph it. We had wetsuits on but Donner would take scissors and cut our suits so they’d fill up with water.
Astin: They were very scared of the water and electricity, because the wishing well set was connected to the water slide set and you were all standing in water. So we did a bit where they rigged up some sparks and one of these little junction boxes. Somebody went: “Dick, look out!” and the thing went in the water and started exploding. I think for a second it freaked him out, and then he was laughing really hard.
Green turned 18 during the shoot.
Green: We were on the ship filming and Dick said: “Come here. We need to get this shot.” He guided me to where there was a big cake, and everyone started singing. I thought I did something wrong. But no, he was always joking around like that. It was very sweet. People would ask me [later on]: “Oh, were there are lots of drugs?” No! Like what are you talking about? We were kids.
Many celebrities visited the set including Cyndi Lauper (who was musical director for the soundtrack), Pee-wee Herman, Dan Aykroyd and Harrison Ford.
Pantoliano: When Harrison came to visit, he was on the cover of a magazine. Steven ordered 300 copies, so when Harrison came over to see the ship, everybody had the magazine like they were reading it. Harrison was going: “What the hell’s going on here?”
McLean: One time, Cyndi, myself and Donner got a flat tyre. When Cyndi got out, with her red hair, it stopped traffic.
When filming came to an end Spielberg organised the ultimate prank – for the cast to fly out to Hawaii to surprise Donner at his home in Maui.
Green: Jeff would come to set in a big Hawaiian shirt, a camera around his neck and a big hat. Dick was like: “Oh, you goddamn kids. I’m exhausted. You’re killing me. I can’t wait to go to Maui.” So Jeff was like: “We’re coming with you.” And Dick would just howl with laughter.
O’Shea: The kids were kind of standoffish to Richard and he wondered what was going on: are they sad because we’re finishing? That was Steven. He said to the kids: “Don’t pay attention to him.” Then they all showed up in Maui.
Pantoliano: They arranged for Donner to go shopping, to get him out of the house. We opened up the suitcases and threw clothes all over the living room. Donner showed up and all he kept saying was, “What the fuck?” Then we had a barbecue. Steven had the foresight to stick us on an airplane afterwards and get us off the island so the kids wouldn’t bother Donner. So we went over to O’ahu for a five-day vacation. It was great.
Astin: This experience for us kids was transformative. How do you complete that without causing major depression? For Steven to play that practical joke was really, to me, an instinctive way for him to honour us.
The film was released to largely positive reviews and went on to gross $64m at the worldwide box office.
Green: There was a premiere, and my family and I went to LA for it. I saw myself on those enormous billboards, hanging off of Josh’s leg. None of it felt real.
Astin: Even when the film came out, I still wasn’t that popular in school. I don’t think it really changed my life. Recognisability, that’s what changed.
Pantoliano: The fact that it was successful led to opportunities. I went on to work for Spielberg. He hired me to be in Empire of the Sun.
The cast still keep in touch.
Pantoliano: I see Sean a lot and Martha. I reacquainted myself with Kerri. When we were doing The Goonies, I was a jogger then, and Kerri was too, so we would jog all around Astoria. But now, in our old age, we walk. We all have an email chain. We talk to everyone at the same time.
Astin: Ke’s such a dignified, strong person, now with a Hollywood story for the ages [he won the best supporting actor award at the 2023 Oscars for Everything Everywhere All at Once]. Jeff is a successful entertainment lawyer, so his vibe is different.
Green: It might be a year or two between seeing each other – it doesn’t matter. We just know one another, and we kind of pick up exactly were we left off. It’s pretty special.
The Goonies sequel was officially announced in February, with Spielberg and Columbus reuniting for the project.
McLean: Donner has died [in 2021], so who would direct it?
Pantoliano: They’ve been talking about sequels to this movie for years. Spielberg would say: “They probably spent millions of dollars just in developing ideas for this thing.” As far as I know, nobody’s called me.
Astin: I would expect that it would not include us. Maybe it’s just my desire not to raise my expectations. I root for it on behalf of the fans who love it.
Green: I had a nice conversation with Chris Columbus at Ke’s hand and footprint ceremony [at LA’s TCL Chinese theatre] recently. It sounds like we all might have cameos in it, which would be so much fun.
Over the years, the film has become a cult classic and was selected in 2017 to be preserved in the US’s National Registry by the Library of Congress.
McLean: Everyone loves The Goonies. It’s just a fun movie.
Pantoliano: It was like Raiders of the Lost Ark for kids.
Astin: It’s camp and goofy and stupid in parts. Then it’s got the childhood wonder and heart. I’ve met so many people who have tattooed their bodies with the Inferno, Sloth, One-Eyed Willy, our faces. They have carved into their skin what this movie means to them.
Green: It’s about friendship. It’s an underdog story; that idea that if you do this together, you’re going to succeed. It was such a magical thing. I have learned to just look back and appreciate how lucky I was to have been part of that.
