Ben Stiller & Robert De Niro Tease Meet The Parents 4…

Summary

Universal is making a new Meet the Parents film with the original cast, teasing fans before filming starts.
The cast reunited for a 25th-anniversary screening during the Tribeca Film Festival and discussed the upcoming film.
With traditional comedies rarely in theaters now, the success of Meet the Parents 4 in 2026 will determine if it sparks a comedy renaissance.

Who says they don't make big-budget comedies anymore? Universal is getting the band back together for a new Meet the Parents film, and its stars are out here teasing fans before they've even started shooting.

2000 was a very different time in Hollywood. The only superhero movie in the top ten highest-grossing films was X-Men at #9, a rom-com nearly raked in $400 million (What Women Want), and Meet The Parents made over $330 million worldwide. Incredibly, four years later, Meet the Fockers brought in an astounding $522+ million and stands as the most recent comedy film to gross $500+ million outside 2012's Ted. Nowadays, out-and-out comedies just don't make that kind of money. Sure, high-concept "comedies" like Barbie and Deadpool will make insane amounts of money, but those are tentpole blockbuster movies. The original Meet the Parents film only cost $55 million to make, and a large chunk of that budget was handed to Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. It remains to be seen if Meet the Parents 4 will cost $100+ million as 2010's Little Fockers did or not.

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By Ollie Tuscarny

During the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, and Robert De Niro reunited with Meet the Parents director Jay Roach for a 25th anniversary screening of their hit comedy flick. After the screening, the foursome held a panel and discussed the upcoming Meet the Parents 4. "What spurred the idea was that at this point in time, I'm the age that (Robert De Niro) was when we did the first movie," Stiller said (via USA Today). "It felt like this mirror to the first film in terms of the fact that my kids are grown, and one of my kids is thinking about introducing his person to the family... This new point in our lives, where the characters are, felt like it really was an organic reason."

Stiller continued, "The cool thing about doing the next one, too, is that the audience has this history with the characters, and they're going to bring that to the film. There's something that's kind of emotional about it for me, for the actors: the connection that people have with the movies." Of course, it's already common knowledge that Ariana Grande is joining the cast this time around, something that should make for an interesting dynamic onscreen.

"The name of the movie is Wicked 3" - Ben Stiller joking about Ariana Grande joining Meet the Parents 4

The Original Cast Of Meet The Parents Is Excited To Reunite For A Fourth Film In The Comedy Series

De Niro also exclaimed that "finally, we are doing another one," and Teri Polo added that she "thought it would never happen again. And now look at us." Clearly, the cast is excited to get to work on a fourth Meet the Parents film, but will audiences show up? Traditional comedy movies almost never get released in theatres anymore, as they typically go straight to streaming nowadays. What out-and-out comedies have even been released in theatres over the past five years? 80 for Brady? Strays? The Bob's Burgers Movie? Like a Boss? The War with Grandpa? It's dire out there for comedy fans.

The only genuine comedy hit that's been released in recent years is January's One of Them Days starring Keke Palmer and SZA, and it only proved to be a commercial success thanks to a low production budget of $14 million. The one-two punch of Game Night and Blockers was way back in 2018. Think about it this way, when Game Night and Blockers proved to be box office hits, Disney+, HBO Max, Discovery+, Peacock, Apple TV+, and Paramount+ all did not exist yet. If films weren't heading straight to Netflix or Amazon's Prime Video service, they were coming out in theatres.

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By Tyler Mitchell

Will Meet the Parents 4 spark a comedy renaissance in Hollywood? We'll have to wait until late 2026 to find out. Universal certainly is hoping so, but it is hard to read the tea leaves about Tinseltown trends this far in advance.