Sean Anders is all about family, and he's got three solid movies to prove it. One of those films, Instant Family, is poised to take on the Thanksgiving box office at the same time as the Fantastic Beasts franchise will try to win the day. But those two other films are the wildly successful Daddy's Home franchise. While it sounds like all involved, Anders included, are moving on from those films, he did lay down the following prospect for a hypothetical Daddy's Home 3:
I think it'd be kind of funny if we did kind of what they did with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, how they got back together later in life. I think it'd be funny if when Mark [Wahlberg] and Will [Ferrell] are old men that we get back together and do Scarlet's wedding. I think that'd be fun to see with those guys.
Sean Anders spilled his guts on this potential scenario as CinemaBlend was invited to speak with him in promotion of his latest film, Instant Family, also starring Mark Wahlberg. While the co-writer/director does have a fondness for the Daddy's Home films, it sounds as if he's moved on from the series for the most part. This latest film lets him stretch some muscles we haven't seen him use before, and it's all for the better.
Just watching Instant Family, you can see that it's a different animal than Daddy's Home ever was in its two film cycle. While the films about competing step-dads are still very much rooted in Anders' wheelhouse of family comedy, they're played more for laughs than anything else.
Instant Family, on the other hand, walks the tightrope of laughs and heart a little more evenly, allowing more room for emotional beats. While the very same brand of comedy exhibited in Daddy's Home is present in this film, it's mixed in with more heart than ever before.
But even Sean Anders knows that as a franchise, Daddy's Home has done quite well for itself. With both films being modest hits that furthered the Wahlberg / Ferrell comedy pairing, there's probably someone in a Paramount office right now trying to figure out how a third film could come together. And quite frankly, this sounds like the best option when it comes to the return of Brad and Dusty; short of sending them on a road trip to recover their fathers after their trip to Vegas.
An older, but wiser pair of co-parents fussing over a big wedding sounds like the perfect way to cap off the two Daddy's Home films that already exist. While there's been plenty of wedding movies done before, complete with fretting parents and escalating slapstick, the prospect of Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell bringing their comedic sensibilities to the table, with Sean Anders at the helm, feels like it'd be something special.
Mark Wahlberg kind of admitted something similar that same afternoon, as we ran the concept by him as we spoke to him about Instant Family. Sure enough, he sounded game for the idea, but on the following, specific conditions:
If [Sean] and Will were in, yeah. I would sign on if those guys were in.
If Daddy's Home 3 never happens, no one could fault Sean Anders. His focus is on heartfelt comedies that tackle important subjects like adoption with keen insight that only someone who's familiar with the process could bring to the table. The result is not only admirable, but also feels like the type of film this world needs more of.
That said, if we are to get a third film in the Daddy's Home universe, Anders just knocked it out of the park with the concept he'd love to use. So waiting 20 years or so for that sequel sounds pretty much worth the time spent.
For now though, you can see Sean Anders and Mark Wahlberg's latest collaboration, Instant Family, when it hits theaters on November 16th.
