I don’t know when last you saw Twins, the massive 1988 hit for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, but it has not aged well. Let’s face it: the film was a product of its time. Most of the jokes circled around Arnie’s muscles or Danny’s scheming ways: both things the actors’ characters were respectively known for. After all, these were the names behind The Terminator and Other People’s Money. You know: he who dies with the most toys wins. Fast forward a few decades and both are far removed from their glory days.
So there was no surprise when nobody took seriously the news a few years ago that a sequel to Twins might be in the works. Written by Josh Gad, it’s called Triplets and the gag is the inclusion of another has-been, Eddie Murphy.
Whatever happened to that? Recently Gad laid out more details about the script in a Reddit AMA, though he mainly says it’s a great script:
Uh, you know… the script is actually done. Everybody agrees that it’s great. We wound up doing 2 drafts.
The story is that the pair of mismatched genetically-bred twins have grown apart and the children we see at the end of Twins are now fully grown. Then a third missing twin, Murphy, shows up on the scene. But things have not progressed past the script stage:
Universal, I think, hit the pause button temporarily for whatever reason – internally I think they are trying to figure out if they want to do a sequel or not. I would say if there’s an outpouring of affection, that may move the needle, but I think it’s on hold right now. But everybody read the script and loved it, so I hope it sees the light of day at some point. It’s there and in great shape.
So basically the studio is not sure if anyone wants a Twins sequel and Gad is hoping fans might change that. But those same fans have not exactly been coming out and saying so. Instead many seem to consider this a bad idea. I’m definitely one of those, especially considering Murphy has not produced anything worth seeing in a long time. Another missing piece is director Ivan Reitman, who has even avoided directing the new Ghostbusters, so there is no hope of seeing him attached to Triplets.
If Triplets means two hours of Arnie moping about getting old, Danny complaining about being a loser and Eddie making the same smart-ass cracks we’ve heard for the past three decades, it may be worth skipping. I never thought I’d say this, but the studio might be right for a change…
Last Updated: January 8, 2015