It’s been a couple of decades since Ben Stiller first discovered that he had to meet his girlfriend’s parents. Meet the Parents was such a success that it spawned an entire franchise, and now, that franchise is getting a new installment. Deadline is reporting that a fourth film is in the works and that Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo and Blythe Danner are all in early talks to star in the new film.
John Hamburg is set to write the screenplay, with De Niro set to produce. Meet the Parents was followed by Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers, and the franchise has grossed $1.13 billion through its first three installments. Little Fockers, the most recent installment, was released in 2010, so there has been a considerable age gap.
The first film follows a young man who is meeting his first his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. He wants to use the weekend to propose to her, but he and her father end up at war, and her girlfriend’s house might pay the consequences.
The news that Stiller would return signals his broader return to acting after taking several years away to focus primarily on directing. De Niro, meanwhile, has been working steadily for decades, and has proven that he can be just as adept at comedy as he has always been at drama. There’s no release date yet for the new film, and we don’t even have a title yet. For now, then, fans of the franchise will just have to hope that the new movie comes to fruition.
