I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately with the opening of “Finding Dory,” the record-breaking sequel to 2003’s “Finding Nemo.” It doesn’t usually take 13 years for a sequel; many take a lot less. For instance, “The Purge: Anarchy” debuted just 400 days after the original. Many more shouldn’t have been made at all (I’m talking to you “Human Centipede.”)
Taking the 6-year-old Princess and her friends to “Finding Nemo” was a treasured memory of her childhood and I have every intention of taking her to see “Dory” even though she’s 19 now and I’m, uhhh, Methodist.
While “Dory” took forever to get made (animation is apparently even more laborious than stocking the correct ratio of green to yellow M&M’s in that diva Meryl Streep’s dressing room), it shattered box office records for an animated movie opening weekend so the suits are happy.
I was thinking that now that we all know that you can wait this long for a sequel, it might be fun to see what else was popular or talked-about in 2003 and envision how those characters might come together again. For example:
“Gigli”: Often topping the “worst of” lists for 2003, this one starring then-couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez might seen an odd choice for a sequel but now that they’re both single again, we’ve kinda been hoping for Bennifer 2.0. It would give the famously chemistry-deficient couple a do-over.
“Freaky Friday”: Oh, how I miss the pre-Malibu Promises version of Lindsey Lohan in this famous Disney remake also starring Jamie Lee Curtis in a case of body-swapping. It made no sense but it was fabulous. Let’s see them all 13 years later. Is LiLo still in a rock band? Has her mom realized that everyone is sick of hearing about her acidic gut? Remake? Yes, please.
“The Matrix: Reloaded”: Not sure if y’all realize this but Keanu is Hawaiian for “Better When He Was On That Speeding Bus.” I don’t care for the Matrix movies, too confusing, but Keanu is fun to watch. Maybe this version could be something we can all relate to as we get older: “The Matrix: Navigating the Grocery Store After Yet Another Remodel.”
“Seabiscuit:” OK, in this sequel, let’s not be quite so saccharine as the first film. Times are tougher now. In this one, horsey falls in with a bad jockey, throws the race and Elizabeth Banks insists on riding him back to “The Hunger Games” as punishment.
“Cheaper By the Dozen”: This cute Steve Martin romp was a favorite of mine back in 2003. Fast forward 13 years and they now have 25 children because Bonnie Hunt’s uterus is, frankly, Duggarian. “Cold Mountain”: Poor mountain folk are just so exhausting to watch. Renee Zellwegger won an Oscar for her turn as Ruby, a hardscrabble farmworker. In the sequel, a nearly unrecognizable Zellwegger explains that she made such a success of the farm she was finally able to “get a little work done.”