Cheaper By The Dozen Premiere Date Announced By Disney+

By Russ Burlingame

Disney+ has announced that their upcoming update of Cheaper By the Dozen will drop in March 2022. The film, which stars Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff, will center on a multiracial family with 12 kids navigating their daily lives and trying to keep their family business afloat. The project was originally announced in 2019, and presumably shot before the pandemic, because part of the announcement video released on Twitter centered on Braff pretending to forget what movie they were talking about, because it had been "so long since we shot it." Gail Lerner, who served as a producer on Black-Ish, directed the movie.

Both Braff and Union have stayed busy in recent years, with Union headlining the Bad Boys spinoff LA's Finest and Braff earning an Emmy nomination for directing Ted Lasso. The film is the latest iteration of a story that first made it to the screen in 1950.

You can see the announcement below.

The original Cheaper By the Dozen starred Jeanne Crain and Clifton Webb as the parents, and was loosely based on a real-life couple's autobiography. That version of the movie ended with Webb's character passing away, making his wife a widow with 12 kids who now had to step into more adult roles. It was followed by a much more slapsticky version in 2003, in which Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt parented an army of kids including Hilary Duff, Tom Welling, and Piper Perabo. That movie, which was directed by Free Guy and Stranger Things veteran Shawn Levy, was popular enough to merit a 2005 sequel. Ashton Kutcher, who played Piper Perabo's boyfriend in that version of the movie, earned a Kids Choice Award for Best Actor and a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor for the part.

The Union/Braff version will be the first time the family is depicted as multiracial, although the 2003 movie changed the Gilbreth family -- the real-life family behind the original book -- to the Bakers, so that they could have more flexibility with characterization and follow-ups. While the Gilbreths were depicted as scientists who used their unique situation as an opportunity to study the human condition, the 2003 movie saw the Bakers as a football coach and an author.

Are you excited to see the next take on Cheaper By the Dozen? Chime in below, or hit up @russburlingame below to talk about kids movies and Zach Braff.

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