Thirty years after prolific American indie auteur Edward Burns first broke out with his debut feature, “The Brothers McMullen,” the filmmaker and some of his onscreen family are back for something both new and old: a sequel.
Entitled “The Family McMullen,” Burns’ 15th (!!) feature picks up three decades after the conclusion of his first film. While the McMullen family has been through plenty in the intervening decades, not much has really changed, as they’re all still navigating big questions about life, love, and family, just now with a brand-new generation in tow.
Per an official release, “‘The Family McMullen’ takes place 30 years after the famed ‘The Brothers McMullen’ premiered and scored several film festival awards for independent films, including the Grand Jury Prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, and proved a hit with U.S. audiences, making it the most profitable film of 1995. Written, directed, produced and starring then-newcomer Edward Burns, ‘The Brothers McMullen’ explored the lives and struggles of three Irish-American brothers from New York.”
Like the first film, this new feature is an ensemble comedy written and directed by Burns “which tracks the romantic entanglements of a now-50-something Barry McMullen (Burns) and his 20-something kids, as well as his brother Patrick (Patrick McGlone) and widowed sister-in-law Molly (Connie Britton), who are also facing unexpected romantic hurdles.”
As Burns told IndieWire earlier this year, “It’s the two brothers and the sister-in-law. I had to figure out a way to give Connie a primary role, and sadly for Jack Mulcahy the easiest way was to kill his character off.” Burns, McGlone, and Britton all reprise their roles from the original film, and are joined by McMullen franchise newbies Tracee Ellis Ross, Juliana Canfield, Pico Alexander, Brian d’Arcy James, and Halston Sage.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be working with Warner Bros. and Fathom Entertainment to bring these characters back to the big screen,” said Burns in a statement. “My hope in re-exploring the McMullen clan was to make another film that would put a smile on the audience’s face and remind moviegoers that home isn’t just a place, it’s the people you share it with.”
A Warner Bros. Pictures film, Fathom Entertainment will release “The Family McMullen” in theaters for a special one-night-only engagement on Wednesday, October 15. Check out the film’s first trailer below.