Groundhog Day 2 Is Happening In This Form
Babe, I got you babe. Again and again and again.
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Groundhog Day 2 is happening, sort of. What’s this you say? Babe, I got you babe. Again and again and again. Almost thirty years after the original (now classic) movie debuted, there is talk about reviving the premise and turning it into a sequel TV series. Let’s repeat that. Hollywood is looking to take the movie Groundhog Day and turn it into a sequel TV series.
How did we get here? It’s executives over at Sony who keen on making it happen and it was one of the movie’s original stars who broke the news that we’re getting Groundhog Day 2, sort of.
BING!
Stephen Tobolowsky aka Ned Ryerson, an insurance agent who is the daily annoyance to Murray’s character, spilled the beans recently about the potential Groundhog Day series. He spoke on Facebook’s The Production Meeting Podcast and had this to say, “There’s talk about a Groundhog Day series in the works. I was working on The Goldbergs or Schooled, one of those shows over on the Sony lot, and one of [the producers] saw me and goes, ‘Oh, Stephen! Stephen! We’re working on a Groundhog Day TV show. Could you be Ned for the TV show?’ I go, ‘Sure. Yeah, no problem.’”
So, it sounds like he was approached. However, asking if he’d be interested and it actually happening are two different things altogether. The project is a series, but more of a sequel series than a remake, at least from Toblowsky’s description. So for now, we’re calling it Groundhog Day 2.
WHO ELSE WOULD REPEAT GROUNDHOG DAY?
Would Bill Murray consider it, even in a recurring role? If you asked that about Groundhog Day 2 a decade ago, the answer would for sure be a resounding no. Murray has been notoriously steadfast in his non-desire to return to the roles he created in the past. For the longest time, he refused to pick up the Peter Venkman Ghostbusters role, until recently with the new Ghostbusters movie. Now Bill Murray’s stance on repeats has changed.
Also making this notion not so far-fetched is the fact that Murray and Tobolowsky have already reprised their Groundhog Day roles on TV when they appeared in a Jeep commercial as Connors and Ryerson during Super Bowl LV earlier this year. So, would he? We’d still give it a 95% chance he says no to a Groundhog Day series, Groundhog Day 2, or anything of the kind. “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.” Yes, we are.
Groundhog Day also co-starred Andie McDowell and Chris Elliott. Would they come back? Would the story allow for them to come back? With very little details to go by, it would be hard to say what direction the Groundhog Day TV show will take.
WHO’S IN CHARGE
One thing we do know, is that Sony is steering the ship. They own the rights to Groundhog Day. If they are asking Tobolowsky, then this is their baby. There is no other word about potential writers or a director for the project. We also don’t know where Groundhog Day 2 would actually end up being available to watch.
THE GROUNDHOG DAY TV SHOW’S PLOT
Repeat. Repeat. And repeat. If the formula worked for the movie, it’s going to have to work for the TV series. But the question is, would the premise get tiring after a while? It’s one thing to watch a two-hour movie based on life repeating itself over and over, but a TV series? Would the viewers tire? Who knows but perhaps it would be fun to find out.
Sony did test the Groundhog Day 2 waters not long ago and we aren’t talking about the commercial. They came out with a VR game in 2019 called Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son, which turned out to be a sequel of sorts. It followed the son of Murray’s Connors, Phil Connors Jr., who was experiencing his father’s same issue. Reliving one day again and again. The game received fairly decent reviews so perhaps this was the impetus to get rolling on a TV series.
Tune in for more word on this potential TV series as it comes in.
THE ORIGINAL GROUNDHOG DAY
Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day was an immediate hit back in 1993, and it saw him team up with his Stripes and Ghostbusters cohort Harold Ramis. The story was about a weatherman, Phil Connors, who is full of himself and has little time for others. Somehow, though, Murray’s Connors wakes up every day to Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe”, reliving the same day over and over and over again, until he gets it right.
