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As fans await the release of the long-awaited family comedy sequel Freakier Friday, another star-studded fan-fave from the early 2000s, Meet the Parents, is once again spreading its franchise wings with a new entry. It’s been 25 years since the flagship film hit theaters, and 15 years since its lackluster second sequel Little Fockers hit #1 at the box office, and co-stars Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro revealed why they’re reuniting for even more cross-generational awkwardness.
During the Tribeca Festival’s 25th anniversary screening and Q&A for Meet the Parents (via Deadline), several cast members reunited with O.G. director Jay Roach to watch what remains one of Ben Stiller’s best movies with an audience for the first time in years. When the discussion turned to the future of Gary Focker’s family, Roach championed screenwriter John Hamburg (who will direct the fourth film) for finding a “great new predicament” to center the new movie around.
Stiller opened up about why the timing for the untitled project lined up so applicably with everyone’s real lives, saying:
I think what spurred the idea was that at this point in time. I’m the age that Bob was when we did the first movie. Teri is the same age she was when we did it, and there was this sort of sort mirror to the first film in terms of my kids are grown. And my kid, one of my kids, is thinking about introducing his person to the family.
Gotta love how Ben Stiller slid that A+ compliment in there about Teri Polo still looking the same age she was when the first film was produced.
To be sure, the new film won’t be hitting the 2025 movie schedule, so it’ll technically arrive 26 years after the original, but the way Stiller put it, it doesn’t matter so much how much time passed by between the films, because the cast and creatives’ kinetic spark still survives. As he put it:
I think life informs everything that’s happened in the last, you know, 25 years, and it’s been a while since we did the last one. I think what like 15 years ago? So it’s kind of like great to look at it as a sort of like a new thing. But of course, there’s all these great memories and I feel like our connections are still there. When we get back together, it’s just like, it’s kind of like, all baked in there.
For all that the “having a baby” concept was handled not-so-ideally with Little Fockers, it sounds like the latest look at this expanding family will be a reflection of the first film, with Gary and Pam now more or less in the same shoes that Jack and Dina filled for the O.G. comedy, though Gary is nowhere near as intimidating and uncomfortable as his father in law. So it’ll be interesting to see how those expectations are flipped around.
Robert De Niro Wanted To Get Another Sequel Going Years Ago
It’s been a full 15 years since Little Fockers came out, but if Robert De Niro initially had his way, fans might have already heard about and seen another franchise sequel come to life in the meantime. The esteemed actor revealed how he tried to talk others into keeping the train rolling years ago.
Actually, when we filmed the last one, I was with Ben and John Hamburg, and we sat in my camper, and I said, ‘Let’s start writing one now, to be ready for another one.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.’ They were humoring me. They didn’t want to do it. whatever. And so now finally, though, it only took 15 years.
By all means, the Fockers could easily remain a Hollywood first family for many decades to come, assuming no one in the clan suddenly goes sterile due to some wildly cringe-worthy accident. Of course, I’m going to need Ben Stiller to work on those discussed Severance spinoff ideas before going back to the Fockers drawing board again.
The currently untitled sequel will be hitting the 2026 movie schedule on November 25, 2026, just in time to make the holiday season a Focker-filled delight.