The ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ Sequel That Never Was
Throughout his illustrious career as an actor and comedian, Robin Williams accomplished a great deal, but one thing he will always be remembered for is his performance in Mrs. Doubtfire.
While celebrating the 30th anniversary of the movie, the director, Chris Columbus, revealed that there were once talks of a sequel.
The 1993 classic follows Daniel Hillard, an actor living in San Francisco who, after a bitter divorce, disguises himself as an elderly female housekeeper named Mrs. Doubtfire. He does this so he can spend time with his children, who are in his ex-wife Miranda’s (played by Sally Field) custody.
The family favorite is based on the novel Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine, with the movie being one of the biggest hits of 1993. It earned over $440 million worldwide, with Jurassic Park being the only film that made more money at the box office that year.
While the comedian was initially against doing a sequel, in a conversation with Business Insider, Columbus revealed that he and Williams eventually discussed doing a second movie. Sadly, shortly after the chat between the two, Williams died on August 11, 2014, meaning the second installment will never come to fruition.
Newsweek contacted Columbus’ representative for comment via email Friday.
“Back then, there was an attitude that sequels were looked down upon by the artists. So Robin was against doing a sequel immediately after,” Columbus said.
“He and I didn’t talk about a sequel until the year he passed away. We had a script that was written and it was the last time I saw Robin. I went to his house and we sat down and talked about it and the script was really strong. Robin’s only comment was, ‘Boss, do I have to be in the suit as much this time?’ It was physically demanding. For Robin, I think it was like running a marathon every day he was in the Doubtfire costume. He was older, obviously.”
Columbus explained that it took four and a half, potentially five, hours for Williams to be made up into Mrs Doubtfire. Because of this, they could never shoot two consecutive days of Williams as the housekeeper.
The director said that when they talked about the potential movie, he thinks Williams was hoping they would cut back on the Doubtfire character. As he was getting older, he knew that getting into costume would be more demanding than when they shot the first film.
Columbus added: “But then Robin passed away so there will never be a sequel to Mrs. Doubtfire.”
He told the publication that Disney owns the rights to the film and is against the company ever going ahead and filming a sequel now that Williams is dead. He said he’d “be very vocal” if the studio decided to do so.
Columbus also revealed that Williams recorded 2 million feet of film because he improvised so much on set. At one point, the director was shooting the movie with four different cameras in an attempt to keep up with the comedian. As no one knew what Williams was going to say once he was in the moment, Columbus wanted a camera on the other actors to get their reactions.
The filmmaker is hoping to use the approximately 972 boxes of footage that he has in storage, some of which are outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage, for a documentary one day.
He added: “We want to show Robin’s process. There is something special and magical about how he went about his work and I think it would be fun to delve into it.”
