Zach Braff Is Remaking A Classic Comedy With Gabrielle Union
Zach Braff is set to star in a remake of a very beloved classic comedy.
This article is more than 2 years old
Zach Braff is a few years removed from his breakout role as JD on Scrubs, but he’s still intent on bringing the comedy when the chances crop up. Maybe those chances aren’t coming as frequently as in the past, or maybe he’s picking and choosing his spots a little more these days. Whatever the reason, it looks like he’s going to reboot a movie alongside Gabriel Union coming soon to Disney+. The two are banding together, with another strong creative to get Cheaper by the Dozen back on the screen.
Cheaper by the Dozen has been done a couple of times already. The first was in 1950 and was originally based on a book of the same name. The more recent version, which is likely much better known, was back in 2003. That starred Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt as parents who, for some reason, decided to have and raise 12 kids. The movie, and its subsequent sequel, focused on the hijinx around so many kids at once. Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union will play the new parents with casting decisions needing to be made around all of the kids. And man, are there ever a lot of them.
Now, how a 45-year-old Zach Braff and a 48-year-old Gabrielle Union pulled off pumping out 12 kids in a such a relatively *short* time frame remains to be seen. I’m guessing we get some duplicates in there along the way that help fill out the quota. But they will be the parents in the television show, navigating a life of having about a football team-plus hanging out around the house and causing all kinds of craziness. There should be plenty of chances to mine comedy around the story and even play it into modern times with parents more at home and the struggle of raising kids these days.
Zach Braff’s Cheaper by the Dozen is headed to Disney+ sometime in 2022 and has Kenya Barris at the helm. The latter is going to act as showrunner and head writer for the production which will also coincide with his current work which includes ABC’s Black-ish and the spinoffs Grown-ish and Mix-ish. The creative firepower in play for this new show gives it a lot of chance for success even if the premise might be a little tired.
Zach Braff has been keeping a relatively low profile over the last couple of years, taking some parts here and there but rarely headlining anything since 2014’s Wish I Was Here. He wrote, directed, and starred in a movie about a struggling actor who decides to homeschool his children. It was met with mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office.
In terms of television shows, Zach Braff was on the short-lived Alex, Inc which followed a radio journalist who quits his job to form a podcast company. It’s loosely based on the formation of Gimlet Media. This was, of course, following Braff’s ultra-successful 10-year run on Scrubs, one of the more underrated comedies of the decade.
Before we get Cheaper by the Dozen, Zach Braff’s next role is with Michael Shannon inShirver. It’s currently filming and is a story about Shannon’s character being mistaken for a famous writer in New York City (Braff). That is due out sometime later this year.
