The plot was based on a true story

While there never was a group of Oregon kids that stumbled across an old treasure map and embarked on a quest to find the lost riches of a pirate, ‘The Goonies’ is loosely based on a true story.

Writer Chris Columbus was inspired by the tale of the Santo Cristo de Burgos - a real ship that went missing somewhere off the coast of Oregon in the late 1600s.

Modern archaeologists think some pieces of timber belonging to the Santo Cristo de Burgos have been found on the Oregon shoreline, but the fate of the ship has never truly been confirmed.