Maybe you can’t milk Robert De Niro, but you can absolutely milk a franchise. That’s pretty much what happened with 2000’s Meet the Parents, which, with its $161 million domestic haul, was one of the year’s biggest movies. Not surprisingly, it birthed a sequel a few years later, and then for some reason a third in 2010. Fifteen years might seem like an odd time to bring the Fockers back, but with nostalgia for the era raging, it actually makes sense. And if star Robert De Niro is to be believed, the script is one that will have audiences lining the fock up.
Meet the Parents was given a 25th anniversary screening at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, where De Niro joined director Jay Roach and co-star Ben Stiller for a packed Q&A. It was here that De Niro assured attendees that the script for the fourth Meet the Parents “is really good…I’m looking forward to it.”
As for why it’s time to add another installment in the Meet the Parents series, Stiller said, “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 [Polo] 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. 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.” Despite the timing playing out perfectly, De Niro said that he was trying to get a fourth Meet the Parents going when Little Fockers was filming.
By all accounts, the 25th anniversary screening of Meet the Parents was extremely well-received, with the audience — who will be key in determining whether a fourth movie will have been warranted — enjoying it in a way that hadn’t really been seen since 2000.
In addition to returners De Niro, Stiller, Polo, and Blythe Danner, newcomer Ariana Grande has also signed on. The movie will be directed by trilogy writer John Hamburg, taking over directing duties from both Roach (the first two) and Paul Weitz (Little Fockers). The movie is currently slated for November 25th, 2026, a perfect date for a post-Thanksgiving family outing to the cinema.
Are you a fan of the Meet the Parents movies? What’s your take on a fourth?
