Twentieth Century FoxThere is not a day that goes by that we aren't falling to our knees, shaking our fists to the sky and yelling: "Why hasn't there been a Mrs. Doubtfire sequel?!"
Wait, no. That's not what we yell. We yell: "Why hasn't anyone punched Justin Bieber in the face yet?! Also, I need a cookie!"
So while we can't say that we've been waiting for a sequel to the 1993 Robin Williams comedy for a long time, we can say that when news broke that Williams and director Chris Columbus were toying around with the idea of a second Mrs. Doubtfire film, we were intrigued.
But intrigued in a very skeptical way. That movie was so much fun and so wonderful on its own. The ending was satisfying and it was a favorite movie from our childhood. Hell, sometimes we quote it out of nowhere, completely unprovoked. If we had a nickel for every time we shouted: "It was a run-by fruiting!" we'd probably have a least a five dollars.
A Mrs. Doubtfire sequel does not need to be made (which is the official tagline of most sequels), but it looks like it's on its way to becoming a reality. So instead of listing all the ways that Mrs. Doubtfire 2: This Time It's Personal* could be a disaster, we want to offer up some suggestions on how to make it successful:
1. Robin Williams has to be all in. This follow-up will live and die with how game the comedian is about bringing back the character of Mrs. Doubtfire. We're not worried about this aspect, as we all know Robin Williams is like the Energizer Bunny of comedy.
2. Please, no undercover missions. His kids and his ex-wife know all about the true identity of Mrs. Doubtfire, so he needs new people to fool. (A new love interest? Her children?) But we swear to the movie gods if the police use him/her for an undercover mission, we will riot. Please don't do that. We don't need the sweet old lady jumping through the air in slow motion firing two guns at some bad guys. So how do you bring back Mrs. Doubtfire?
3. Just throwing some ideas out there: Mrs. Doubtfire worked best when she/he was out of her element (the cooking scene, for example), so maybe stick her somewhere like a college campus or a high school. Robin's character trying to deal with kids today could actually be funny. Just don't make her the maid of a sorority house or something, because that's unsettling in so many ways.
4. We need Harvey Fierstein to reprise his role as Frank. Don't argue with us, just make it happen.
5. The movie needs heart. The reason Mrs. Doubtfire remains relatable after all these years is because of the central theme involving family. For a lot of people, Mrs. Doubtfire was their first introduction to the subject of divorce. And they didn't sugarcoat it. It was real. It was messy. And it gave the movie a backbone.
6. Don't repeat old jokes. Half of the comedy from the original Mrs. Doubtfire came from Daniel's very clumsy transition into the Mrs. Doubtfire character. We can't do the woman with hairy legs, fake boobs catching on fire or a bit about Daniel switching from himself to Mrs. Doubtfire over and over again to convince a social worker that two separate people live in the apartment again. It's been done. You can do versions of these types of jokes, but do not recycle the same old stuff. That's just lazy.
7. Finally, recognize that your audience is different now. That should be a no-brainer, but we're saying it anyway. Kids nowadays are much different from kids of the early '90s, so you either have to make this a very family-friendly film geared exclusively to young children, or you have to crank up the comedy and make it for an older crowd. There is no inbetween. Movies for "all ages" don't really work anymore unless the name behind the title is Pixar or Disney.
Or they can scrap all these ideas and just make it a straight-up horror movie, like this person did by re-cutting the trailer:
Creepy, no?
*not the actual title of the sequel