The Sandlot 2

A decade after the summer of 1962, a new group of neighbourhood children claims the local sandlot for baseball. In 1972, Saul, his friends and three girls spend their days on the diamond, bound together by the game and by a second, riskier goal. A model rocket belonging to one of them lands in the yard of the reclusive Mr. Mertle, a place the children avoid because a huge, feared dog is said to live there. Retrieving the rocket means venturing into that yard and past the animal the neighbourhood calls the Great Fear. The film is a family comedy set in the same small town as the earlier story, following a fresh generation of players rather than the original gang.

David Mickey Evans directed and wrote the screenplay, returning to the material he had first brought to the screen with The Sandlot in 1993. In the chronological list of his directing work, this is the sixth of seven features, arriving between Barely Legal and Ace Ventura Jr: Pet Detective, and it follows a run that included two Beethoven sequels. David Bixler produced. The cast includes Max Lloyd-Jones, James Willson, Samantha Burton, Brett Kelly, Cole Evan Weiss and Neilen Benvegnu, with 22 credited performers and 80 credited crew members.

Made for home viewing by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and David Evans Pictures on a budget of 5 million dollars, the film sits well below the original with audiences. It holds a rating of 4.6 out of 10 on IMDb from around 6,300 votes and 5.9 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 180 votes, a small sample that points to limited attention.