A ‘Sandlot’ Prequel Is Coming to Ruin Your Childhood
Because a stoner version of Home Alone was apparently not enough to ruin your childhood, there is now a Sandlot prequel in the works.
According to Deadline, who first reported the news, 20th Century Fox is in the early stages of developing a prequel to the 1993 coming-of-age comedy. Original director and writer David Mickey Evans is attached to pen the script alongside Austin Reynolds, but plot details are being kept tightly under wraps. Deadline speculates it may involve the legend of the beast, the savage English mastiff known for hoarding kids' baseballs and generally terrorizing the community, which would at least kind of make sense, since it's unclear why a group of actual children would need more backstory.
The original film was a solid success for Fox, bringing in $33 million against a $7 million budget. It was set in Los Angeles during the summer of 1962, focusing on a young boy named Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) struggling to fit in in a new neighborhood. Eventually, sandlot leader Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez (Mike Vitar) takes him under his wing, and together they and the rest of the team have to deal with retrieving a Babe Ruth-autographed ball from The Beast after losing it over the fence.
It spawned two direct-to-video sequels — 2005's The Sandlot 2 and 2007's The Sandlot: Heading Home — and celebrated its 25th anniversary in April.