Everyone can stop “tossing their cookies” now that director/writer Ivan Reitman’s Twins sequel, Triplets, has cast Tracy Morgan as the film’s long-lost sibling. Triplets will film in January in Boston, with Schwarzenegger and DeVito onboard to reprise their roles from the 1988 crime comedy. In the new film, Julian (Schwarzenegger) and Vincent (DeVito) discover that they are part of a trio. Dylan Dawson and Lucas Kavner are writing the script and a sizzle reel is being prepped for potential buyers.
“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 told 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 original was a major success for Universal, with $216 million in global receipts. However, Reitman called for a reversion of the rights if the sequel were to be shot on time.
“We had this fabulous deal we made with Tom Pollock, who wound up being my partner at Montecito Pictures,” Reitman said. “It was his first picture as the chairman of Universal. He loved the script and really believed in it. We decided we would do this where there was very little money upfront. We made the movie for $15 million. But it came with a lot of gross and so we ended up doing very well. In terms of future rights, Universal had very restrictive secondary rights in terms of sequels. They had to act on it very quickly, which they didn’t, because we hadn’t really developed it.”
Excited to share the film’s premise, Reitman revealed the following about the plot for Triplets: “Secretly, there was a third baby born, a Black baby, who hasn’t been in touch with his siblings,” Reitman revealed. “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.”
It’s been a while since Reitman has directed a major motion picture, but it turns out that Schwarzenegger was insistent on him being the one to helm Triplets. “I haven’t directed in a couple of years, but Arnold kept saying, ‘c’mon, we had such a great time.’ I just called him in Budapest and he’s so excited to see how people respond to the reel as we send it out. The initial reaction has been very strong, and how young Arnold and Danny look and how great the chemistry is with Tracy. I had a great time doing the first one, and this is going to be fun.”
There’s nothing quite like getting the band back together, eh? Triplets has been little more than a rumor for as long as I can recall, and so it’s nice to finally see some forward momentum on this project. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued by the prospect of seeing Schwarzenegger and DeVito together again on screen. Now that they’ve added Morgan to the mix, there’s no telling what will happen.
What do you think of Morgan replacing Murphy as the long-lost sibling to Julian and Vincent? Are you excited to see this movie come together, or has it been on the back burner for far too long to hold your interest? Let us know in the comments section below.