Another Goonies Sequel Rumor? N. Oregon Coast's Astoria Not Holding Its Breath

Published 9/09/24 at 10:25 p.m.
By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Astoria, Oregon) – Another year, another Goonies rumor. Two new major posts are making the rounds that has some around the world buzzing that there may be – finally – a sequel to The Goonies.

Very doubtful, say Oregon officials and many, many reporters looking into the most recent blurbs. The movie that turned the north Oregon coast town of Astoria into a pilgrimage site is not getting a sequel with the full cast – that's a definite no. One passed away in recent years.

The most controversial of the posts comes from The Sun, which claims an unnamed source saying a full sequel is in the works. As The Direct points out, that publication has been way off on Hollywood reporting before, and at least one Oregon official is saying no, there's no sequel in the works.

The Sun – though a sensationalist tabloid - is not wrong all the time, however. There is a vague possibility.

Still, Tim Williams, Executive Director of Oregon Film (the state's official film office) is extremely doubtful.

“The Sun article has not been verified and a 'poster' that was created from that post was confirmed as 'fan created' - so I don't actually think it is accurate information,” Williams told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. “The studio that controls the rights to The Goonies, Warner Bros., has not confirmed the announcement.”

Courtesy Warner Bros.

The original The Goonies was partially filmed in Astoria and Cannon Beach in '84 and '85, and finished up in a whirlwind with just weeks to spare before release. Filming The Goonies on N. Oregon Coast: at Astoria, Cannon Beach

It's by far and away not the first time The Goonies has come up in the press with a possible sequel on the way. In 2014, original director Richard Donner himself was quoted as saying it was in the works, with Steven Spielberg once more writing the story. That got a little more traction before it died off.

This is not the only persistent rumor regarding The Goonies and the Oregon coast. Though no evidence ever really existed in the film's first 20 years, somewhere since the early 2000s people starting claiming the movie was inspired by a shipwreck outside of Manzanita, about 36 miles south of Astoria. See Part II, Manzanita 300-Yr-Old Spanish Galleon Find: Historic Surprises for Oregon Coast

Since the late 1900s, those around the Nehalem Bay area had been finding beeswax with mysterious markings on them, and various chatter persisted over 100 years or so that either a pirate ship had come ashore in the area and left treasure on Neahkahnie Mountain or some shipwreck had occurred that left the beeswax in the area.

None of that had even been vaguely sorted out until long after the movie was written and released. Then, in 2022, when a discovery of the 17th century's Santo Cristo de Buros wreck was made, a media storm tried to tie it to Goonies. Not so.

The story was written by Steven Spielberg before the location of Astoria had been set, and then writer Chris Columbus wrote the final script somewhere early on. Indeed, the movie was originally set in an unnamed East Coast town.

Astoria itself is part of the famed “graveyard of the Pacific,” with hundreds of shipwrecks between Rockaway Beach and south Washington's coast, so it's minutely possible something from that area's past was written into the script later, but that's flimsy. The legends from Manzanita were really nebulous and rather localized in '84. Astoria Shipwrecks and the Graveyard of the Pacific on N. Oregon Coast

There was never really written evidence before the 2022 find that shipwreck legends of Manzanita had anything to do with the movie. Indeed, Oregon Coast Beach Connection has sizable evidence to the contrary (not to mention look to DVD commentary).

Courtesy Clatsop County Historical Society

On the day of The Goonies' release, June 7, 1985, Salem's The Statesman-Journal ran an interview with Harvey Bernhard, one of the producers. Ron Cowan wrote: “The film was originally to have been set in some anonymous East Coast seaport town,” Bernhard told him. He had a second home in Washington and relatives in Oregon back in the early '80s.

“I always wanted to shoot a picture in the Northwest and I fought for it" he told Cowan." I said I know this funky seaport town.”

Cowan writes Bernhard said Donner came up to Oregon and “fell in love with it.”

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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