As followers await the discharge of the long-awaited household comedy sequel Freakier Friday, one other star-studded fan-fave from the early 2000s, Meet the Mother and father, is as soon as once more spreading its franchise wings with a brand new entry. It’s been 25 years because the flagship movie hit theaters, and 15 years since its lackluster second sequel Little Fockers hit #1 on the field workplace, and co-stars Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro revealed why they’re reuniting for much more cross-generational awkwardness.
In the course of the Tribeca Pageant’s twenty fifth anniversary screening and Q&A for Meet the Mother and father (through Deadline), a number of solid members reunited with O.G. director Jay Roach to observe what stays considered one of Ben Stiller’s greatest films with an viewers for the primary time in years. When the dialogue turned to the way forward for Gary Focker’s household, Roach championed screenwriter John Hamburg (who will direct the fourth movie) for locating a “nice new predicament” to middle the brand new film round.
Stiller opened up about why the timing for the untitled venture lined up so applicably with everybody’s actual lives, saying:
I feel what spurred the thought was that at this time limit. I’m the age that Bob was after we did the primary film. Teri is similar age she was after we did it, and there was this form of kind mirror to the primary movie by way of my children are grown. And my child, considered one of my children, is considering introducing his individual to the household.
Gotta love how Ben Stiller slid that A+ praise in there about Teri Polo nonetheless trying the identical age she was when the primary movie was produced.
To make certain, the brand new movie will not be hitting the 2025 film schedule, so it will technically arrive 26 years after the unique, however the way in which Stiller put it, it does not matter a lot how a lot time handed by between the movies, as a result of the solid and creatives’ kinetic spark nonetheless survives. As he put it:
I feel life informs all the things that’s occurred within the final, you understand, 25 years, and it’s been some time since we did the final one. I feel what like 15 years in the past? So it’s sort of like nice to have a look at it as a form of like a brand new factor. However after all, there’s all these nice recollections and I really feel like our connections are nonetheless there. Once we get again collectively, it’s similar to, it’s sort of like, all baked in there.
For all that the “having a child” idea was dealt with not-so-ideally with Little Fockers, it seems like the newest take a look at this increasing household will likely be a mirrored image of the primary movie, with Gary and Pam now roughly in the identical sneakers that Jack and Dina crammed for the O.G. comedy, although Gary is nowhere close to as intimidating and uncomfortable as his father in regulation. So it will be attention-grabbing to see how these expectations are flipped round.
Robert De Niro Wished To Get One other Sequel Going Years In the past
It has been a full 15 years since Little Fockers got here out, but when Robert De Niro initially had his approach, followers might need already heard about and seen one other franchise sequel come to life within the meantime. The esteemed actor revealed how he tried to speak others into conserving the prepare rolling years in the past.
Truly, after we filmed the final one, I used to be with Ben and John Hamburg, and we sat in my camper, and I mentioned, ‘Let’s begin writing one now, to be prepared for one more one.’ And so they mentioned, ‘Yeah, yeah, certain, certain, certain.’ They have been humoring me. They didn’t wish to do it. no matter. And so now lastly, although, it solely took 15 years.
By all means, the Fockers may simply stay a Hollywood first household for a lot of a long time to come back, assuming nobody within the clan immediately goes sterile resulting from some wildly cringe-worthy accident. In fact, I will want Ben Stiller to work on these mentioned Severance spinoff concepts earlier than going again to the Fockers drafting board once more.
The at the moment untitled sequel will likely be hitting the 2026 film schedule on November 25, 2026, simply in time to make the vacation season a Focker-filled delight.