The new Focker-In-Law trailer has tickled a few eagle-eyed viewers, who have noticed an apparent editing error.
In the movie teaser, dropped Wednesday, Ariana Grande joins the Meet the Parents franchise as Olivia, the soon-to-be fiancée of Henry (Skyler Gisondo), the now-grown son of Greg and Pam Focker, played by returning stars Ben Stiller and Teri Polo.
When Olivia visits Henry’s maternal grandparents — his hard-to-please grandfather Jack (Robert De Niro) and gracious grandmother Dina Byrnes (Blythe Danner) — she quickly wins over Jack, sparking Greg’s jealousy, as it took him years to be accepted into the family.
At one point in the trailer, the family goes for a bike ride. Olivia challenges Greg to a race, and as the two are speeding down the trail, Greg clips Olivia’s back tire, sending her tumbling to the ground.
As she falls on her back, Olivia’s face appears to be that of a stunt double rather than Grande.
“The way you can see the stunt double in the [bike] fall scene — I can’t,” one fan commented on YouTube.
“The obvious stunt double is cracking me up lowkey,” a second noted on X.
The Independent has contacted the film’s studio, Universal Pictures, for comment.
Nevertheless, the trailer left many fans impressed and eager for the beloved franchise’s belated return.
“A hilarious comeback for the Focker family, looks like another fun filled comedy just in time for the Thanksgiving holidays,” another said on X, while one admitted: “Looks so much better than I was expecting. They have a great new hook to keep it going and the same energy and chemistry that started it all.”
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Focker-In-Law will release in theaters November 25, more than 15 years after the comedy series’s third film, Little Fockers, in 2010. The original film, Meet the Parents, premiered in 2001, followed by the second sequel, Meet the Fockers, in 2004.
The first three films followed the extreme family conflict between the buttoned-up Byrnes and the laid-back Fockers.
Those three movies were co-written by John Hamburg, who has penned the screenplay for the new film, which he will also direct. Meanwhile, Jay Roach, the director of the initial two titles, Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, is attached as a producer. De Niro and Jane Rosenthal will also act as producers through their Tribeca Productions, while Stiller and John Lesher will produce via their Red Hour Films banner.
Grande, 32, was added to the cast last July, hot off the heels of her first Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Glinda in Jon M. Chu’s critically acclaimed Wicked. Gisondo, Beanie Feldstein and Eduardo Franco are also among the new cast.
Following the trailer’s first showing Wednesday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, De Niro hailed Grande as “probably the single most talented screen partner I’ve been lucky to share the screen with,” to which Stiller replied: “In a way, she’s kind of like the new Ben Stiller.”
De Niro comedically hit back: “She got an Oscar nomination. How many of those do you have?”
