Father of The Bride Reboot Gets A Director

Warner Bros is moving full steam ahead on a reboot of Father of the Bride with Deadline reporting that Gaz Alazraki has been tapped by the studio to helm the new movie, which revolves around a Latinx family. Alazraki has been a major force out of the Mexican film industry, creating the Netflix original series Club de Cuervos and directing the international hit We Are the Nobles (a Warners International release). According to the trade, this version of Father of the Bride will be influenced more by the Spencer Tracy starring feature from 1950 than the Steve Martin lead series from the 1990s.

As the name implies, Father of the Bride follows a man preparing for his daughter’s wedding. Its origins go back further than the Steve Martin version that most are familiar with though as it was first published as novel in 1949. The feature film starring Tracy debuted a year later and was followed by a sequel a year later, Father’s Little Dividend. A one season sitcom using the name and concept aired in the 1960s a well. The Martin lead reboot premiered in 1991 from director Charles Shyer and featuring a script co-written by Nancy Meyers. It would also spawn a sequel, Father of the Bride Part II, in 1995 and an online exclusive “Part III” last year as a means to raise money for pandemic relief.

Matt Lopez will be scripting the new version of Father of the Bride, having recently been tapped by Disney to write a reboot of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which will also be created with a Latinx family front and center. Lopez previously worked with Disney in the mid-00s when he penned the script for Bedtime Stories, Race to Witch Mountain, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The trade reports that the new film will be set against the backdrop of a “big, sprawling Cuban-American family” and is more of a “rom-com than previous versions of film.”

When the Disney+ streaming platform was first announced a Father of the Bride reboot was one of the projects the Walt Disney Company said they were developing. No word on that has been announced in the years since, but it’s possible that competing projects could pop up due to mangled Hollywood rights. Disney’s Buena Vista was the company behind the Steve Martin reboot, so seemingly still own the rights to that version, while Warner Bros. is the home of the MGM back catalogue, where the original Father of the Bride resides.