Nearly 40 years later, the childhood classic starring Ke Huy Quan, Sean Astin and Josh Brolin is back in the spotlight.
Nearly 40 years after debuting in theaters, The Goonies is once again one of the most talked-about films in 2023, in large part thanks to one of its former child stars, Ke Huy Quan, who has made a major Hollywood comeback with Everything Everywhere All at Once.
In the 1985 film directed by Richard Donner, written by Chris Columbus and based on a story by Steven Spielberg, Quan plays Richard "Data" Wang, a spy fanatic obsessed with making his own gadgets who is one of several kids living in a coastal Oregon town attempting to save their homes from foreclosure by searching for the long-lost fortune of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy.
During his emotional speech for his historic Best Supporting Actor Oscar win on Sunday for his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, Quan personally thanked his Goonies co-star Jeff Cohen, who later became his lawyer and negotiated his deal for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Cohen played Chunk in The Goonies. Quan was in tears as he thanked Cohen, calling him his "Goonies brother for life."
The longtime friends later happily posed at the Vanity Fair after-party alongside Ana de Armas.
Back in January when Quan received an Oscar nomination, Cohen -- who's a partner at entertainment law firm Cohen Gardner LLP -- shared a heartfelt message for him on Twitter.
"Could not be more proud of and excited for my Brother, Ke Huy Quan," he wrote while sharing pictures of the two, including a throwback on of them on the Goonies set. "Ke is a prodigiously gifted Actor and more importantly a remarkably kind and compassionate human being."
With The Goonies being a box office success and more popular than ever, there have been multiple calls for a sequel with Josh Gad reuniting the ensemble 35 years later. "Every couple of years, we come up with an idea but then it doesn't hold water," Spielberg said of a second film while reminiscing with the cast. "The problem is the bar that all of you raised on this genre, I don't think we've really successfully been able to find an idea that is better than The Goonies that we all made in the '80s. Until we do, people are just going to have to look at this one 100 times."
That said, love for The Goonies hasn't soured. In January, longtime fan Behman Zakeri bought the film's central house for $1.6 million. According to the Washington Post, his guideline for entering the property: Guests are asked to do the truffle shuffle just like Chunk (Jeff Cohen) did decades prior.
But Quan's not the only actor to find success, with co-stars Corey Feldman, Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton and Sean Astin becoming fixtures on the big and small screen in the years that followed. So, take a look at The Goonies' many child stars and what they've been up to since as fans new and old celebrate the lasting childhood classic.
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