Are you ready for Father of the Groom?
Nearly 20 years have passed since Steve Martin and Diane Keaton welcomed babies in the 1995 sequel to their hit comedy Father of the Bride. Disney and Warner Bros. would like to get the ball rolling on a potential Father of the Bride 3, but with a major twist. According to Nikki Finke, the young son, Matty, is older and gay, and planning a wedding with the son of a Navy SEAL. Hilarity ensues.
Kieran Culkin, younger brother of Macauley Culkin, played young Matty Banks in the original, 1991 Father of the Bride and its 1995 sequel. And seeing as how he is 31 in real life, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t continue the part in Father of the Bride 3, though there is no mention of him in Finke’s report. She does, however, point out that in true George Banks fashion, he is not happy by these developments. The source leaking this development says that Steve Martin’s character is "thunderstruck and speechless" by the developments. Nina (Diane Keaton), as a result, has thrown him out of the house, because intolerance is unacceptable in 2014, sir! I wonder what "gay" activities Steve Martin will have to go through on screen before the third act turn where he finally accepts Matty and his lover and throws the biggest gay wedding California has ever seen. Hmmmm. Whomever can they call to plan that?
I would have guessed that Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride films were his highest-grossing efforts, seeing as how they are crowd-pleasing family comedies that speak directly to anyone who has even endured the hardships of planning a wedding. I would have been wrong, as neither even broke the $100 million mark. Maybe making Father of the Bride 3 isn’t quite the slam dunk I assumed before researching this franchise. I’m sure that the movies have built up an audience thanks to home video repeats. But how strong is in the interest 20 years later?
Giving the uptight George Banks a gay son is an interesting and contemporary twist, and a semi-bold move by Disney to explore comedy in the hot-button topic of marriage-equality rights. Let’s hope that the jokes don’t have 20 years of dust on top of them, and that writer-director Charles Shyer, who helmed both Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, has enough to say to justify the sequel.
