Twenty years after Nick Persons first loaded Suzanne’s kids into his Lincoln Navigator, he is back. And this time, he has grandkids.
Ice Cube and Nia Long are reuniting for Are They Gone Yet?, the third installment in the Are We There Yet? franchise, currently in early development after being acquired by Skydance Sports. The film is written by Chris Hazzard and Mike Fontana and produced by Broken Road and CubeVision.
“We built something special with this franchise,” Ice Cube said in a statement. “Audiences grew up with Nick Persons, and now Nick’s got grandkids. Time flies. Partnering with Skydance to bring this story to a new generation is exactly the kind of move CubeVision was built for.”
The original Are We There Yet? (2005) followed bachelor Nick as he reluctantly drove his crush Suzanne’s two kids across the country, learning along the way that love comes with a package deal. That film starred Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel Bolden as Lindsey and Kevin, the kids at the center of it all. Whether the two will return to reprise their roles as the now grown children whose kids Nick will presumably be wrangling is not yet known, but a full cast reunion would be a full circle moment fans of the franchise would no doubt welcome. The sequel, Are We Done Yet? (2007), moved the family to the suburbs and put Nick at odds with a chaotic contractor played by John C. McGinley. Together the two films grossed more than $156 million worldwide, and the franchise later spawned a TBS sitcom starring Terry Crews and Essence Atkins that ran for three seasons from 2010 to 2013.
Are They Gone Yet? is produced by Ice Cube, Todd Garner and Jeff Kwatinetz, with Ben Hurwitz and Lauren Gennawey serving as executive producers.