#Father of the Bride Reboot Coming Will Focus on a Latinx Family – /Film

The Father of the Bride dam has been broken! Hot on the heels of the teaser trailer for the upcoming Father of the Bride reunion special from Netflix, a new report indicates Warner Bros. is working on a Father of the Bride reboot that will feature a Latinx family at the center of the story.

Collider broke the news of the Father of the Bride reboot in the works at Warner Bros. Pictures. Though there aren’t any cast members in place yet, and there’s no director attached, writer Matt Lopez (Bedtime Stories, Race to Witch Mountain) will be handling script duties, and Jesse Ehrman and Paul Perez will oversee for the studio. Though his filmography leaves something to be desired, I’m at least happy to see a Latinx writer getting a job like this, even if the Father of the Bride from 1991 is a near-perfect movie that doesn’t need to be rebooted at all.

The original Father of the Bride was released in 1950 and starred Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor as a couple dealing with their daughter’s impending nuptials the best they can. Steve Martin and Diane Keaton starred in the remake in 1991, which was successful enough to spawn a sequel, followed by that upcoming reunion special on Netflix that will act as a psuedo-threequel.
Though I stand by the fact that Father of the Bride doesn’t need to be rebooted, bringing a Latinx family (specifically a Cuban American family according to The Wrap) into the fray does make the proceedings a little more interesting. For the unitiated, Latinx weddings are huge family affairs, even more than your average wedding. Latinx families see weddings as family reunions where everybody from all sides of the family are invited. There are plenty of traditions that are outside of the norm from traditional American weddings, and it should make for a fun remake.

As much as I like Father of the Bride, if there’s one thing that’s always bothered me about the remake it’s that George Banks is incredibly stingy about money when it’s clear he doesn’t need to be. The guy owns a sneaker company, drives around in a luxury, classic car, has a huge house in a nice neighborhood in California, and complains about every cost of his daughter’s wedding. He even famously gets chintzy about hot dog buns. While that kind of comedy is something that Steve Martin does well, it’s full of rich white people problems. It doesn’t necessarily make the movie any less charming, but as someone with a Hispanic background, I hope this Latinx approach will make the story a little more relatable.

It’s surprising that this project is set up at Warner Bros. when Disney+ was said to be working on a reboot of the movie for their streaming library. Disney’s Touchstone Pictures produced the remake back in 1991, and their Buena Vista Pictures distributed it too. But the original 1950 movie hails from MGM, and Warner Bros. picked up the rights to a bunch of their movies awhile back. Does that make any hope of a real Father of the Bride Part III happening at Netflix impossible? We’ll find out tomorrow.

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