Having spent years plodding through the wilderness of development, speculation and limbo, it looks like the long-rumoured sequel to Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito comedy Twins is finally going ahead. With Ivan Reitman returning to direct Triplets, Tracy Morgan is aboard to co-star.
What's the premise? Fairly self-explanatory, but here's the update on Dylan Dawson and Lucas Kavner's script from Reitman himself: "Secretly, there was a third baby born, a Black baby, who hasn’t been in touch with his siblings. They don’t know each other and very early in the movie they meet and it’s how they achieve a bond together after all these years. It’s really a film about family and, no matter how different we all are, we have to learn to get along. These guys have great chemistry together, and you can see that in the reel, and how much energy they bring out in each other."
According to the director, who has been shepherding this sequel for decades after the 1988 original was a hit, it was originally intended to co-star Eddie Murphy, but he's been too busy of late. "Twins was quite successful, and some years after, this whole thing started with Arnold meeting Eddie Murphy, and the suggestion came from one of them," Reitman tells Deadline. "It was, 'I should be a triplet, that could be a very funny comedy.' We started a script with Eddie, and after the success he had with Amazon Prime on Coming 2 America, he got himself booked up heavily. And we knew we were going to make it at the beginning of next year. I’d been good friends with Tracy Morgan for a long time and always thought he was one of the funniest men in the world. I thought he would make a terrific triplet, and we rewrote the whole script for him. Now, we’ll go out and try and put the money together and get it made."
The plan, according to Reitman, is to go the indie route and put it up for sale at the Toronto Film festival market with a sizzle reel of the actors to attract buyers. If all goes to plan, the cameras will roll in Boston in January. We can't imagine this'll sit around for long – Universal distributed the original movie, but in this day and age, it feels like a project for a streaming service to snatch up...