VOD Spotlight: “Little Fockers”

More than 10 years after Meet the Parents introduced insecure nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) to the overbearing Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) and six years after the mismatched in-laws first got together in Meet the Fockers, the comedy franchise continues. The characters and the stars who play them are older, as Greg and wife Pam (Teri Polo) juggle work and parenthood in a way that families can relate to.

“When you’re making the third film in a series, the constant question is ‘How do you keep it fresh and retain what people liked about the first two movies?’” asks writer John Hamburg, who also worked on the previous films. “Ben is a perfectionist and one of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered. He wants to keep working at the material from a character standpoint. So you challenge yourself to make it better, make it real and more original. The voice I have as a writer and the voice that Ben has as an actor just go together well. It’s a very fluid process.”

Hamburg adds, “It’s dealing with issues that are relevant for each of the characters at various stages in life.” And, of course, as the old nursery rhyme on those stages goes, “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes daddy with a baby carriage.”

The stars of this series are growing older, which adds to the realism of the films, in which Greg and Jack have come to accept each other, but Jack’s trust issues (remember the lie detector test in Parents?) and Greg’s need to please keep resurfacing in comedic and painful ways, particularly after Jack decides to appoint Greg as his successor as head of the family and institutes a whole new round of tests to determine that Greg is worthy of the role.

The chemistry between the two actors is one of the reasons the films have been so successful. “I finally feel comfortable calling him Bob after 10 years,” Stiller jokes. “For me, Little Fockers is all about just being able to work with Robert De Niro again.”

And, if the stars have any say in it, they will work again in the future. “I jokingly said to Bob De Niro that I hope [the films] keep coming, even if we’re walking with canes on the next one and graduate to walkers and wheelchairs on the ones after that,” costar Blythe Danner, who plays De Niro’s wife, says.

“Little Fockers” is now showing on Video On Demand. Check your cable system for availability.

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© 2011 Universal Studios & DW Studios LLC. Credit: Glen Wilson