Zac Efron Is Returning To Disney To Reboot A Classic '80s Movie
To call Disney+ a success story in the streaming world would be an understatement. The House of Mouse's standalone SVOD (subscriber video on demand) hit 10 million users on day one. Nine months later, in July 2020, it has have reached nearly 60 million, a goal it initially estimated would take until 2024. There's just one small problem: the race for new content. In hopes of generating hits, Disney is sticking with what it knows. According to mulitple sources including The Hollywood Reporter, bringing on High School Musical star Zac Efron to do a Three Men & A Baby remake for Disney+, hoping the team-up of a familiar face and title will be a winner.
The original Three Men & A Baby was released in 1987, directed by the late Leonard Nimoy, and starred three 1980s era hunks: Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. Technically, the film itself was a remake, an Americanized version of a French comedy, Trois Hommes et un Couffin. The premise of Three Men is totally '80s: Tree swinging bachelors find their lifestyles irrevocably changed when one of them, Jack (Danson), is handed custody of his love child.
The irony in the original is that Jack, who's an actor, has no idea there's a child. While off shooting a film, he tells his roommates to expect a "package." He means heroin, but his roommates don't know that. When the baby, Mary, shows up, they assume this is the "package." In the hijinks that follow (including drug lords who accidentally make off with powdered milk), both roommates fall head over heels for baby Mary. By the time Jack returns home, they have committed to raising her, and Jack quickly follows suit.
Three Men & A Baby was the highest-grossing movie of 1987 and the first Walt Disney Studios film to gross $100 million domestically.The sequel, Three Men & A Little Lady quickly followed in 1990. There was talk of Three Men & A Bride in 2010 as a long-simmering final film to make it a trilogy, but that was eventually abandoned.
Instead, Disney will reboot the franchise, this time as a film made for Disney+. Bringing Efron aboard as his return to the studio that made him a star marks this as a double-comeback of sorts. Since leaving the High School Musical factory, Efron has starred in a wide range of well-received roles, racking up his acting bona fides in Hollywood's eyes, though not the box-office numbers of his youth.
At this time, there's no director attached to lead the project, and no co-stars signed on as the other two bachelors. Disney+'s Three Men & A Baby remake does not yet have a release date.
