{"id":347016,"date":"2025-08-15T16:57:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/347016\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T16:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:57:15","slug":"why-freaky-friday-director-mark-waters-wasnt-invited-back-for-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/347016\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘Freaky Friday’ Director Mark Waters Wasn’t Invited Back for Sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFriday remains a beloved weekday thanks to the box office success of Disney\u2019s sequel \u201cFreakier Friday<\/a>,\u201d which reunites stars Jamie Lee Curtis<\/a> and Lindsay Lohan for the first time since the 2003 \u201cFreaky Friday<\/a>.\u201d The new film, written by Jordan Weiss and directed by Nisha Ganatra, has been praised for bringing a new take to the story while honoring the original. Fans have been particularly pleased to see so many actors returning for the sequel more than 20 years later. That includes not only the leads but actors like Chad Michael Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky and even Ryan Malgarini,\u00a0who has since retired from acting but returned to reprise his role as Curtis\u2019 son.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne person who did not return is Mark Waters<\/a>, who scored a major career breakthrough after directing the 2003 version. Waters has fond memories of making the film, which helped put him on the map. While the director earned raves for his 1997 indie debut \u201cThe House of Yes,\u201d Waters says he was \u201cunable to get arrested\u201d after his 2001 sophomore effort, \u201cHead over Heels.\u201d In addition to launching Lohan\u2019s teen career, \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d jump-started Waters as a filmmaker, leading to such hits as\u00a0\u201cMean Girls\u201d (also with Lohan) and \u201cMister Popper\u2019s Penguins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waters is supportive of the new film and had every intention of seeing it opening weekend, but was waylaid by his busy schedule. He\u2019s in the middle of post on his new film, \u201cHershey,\u201d starring Finn Wittrock as Milton S. Hershey, the founder of the chocolate empire, and Alexandra Daddario as his wife Kitty. Waters took some time to step out of the editing room and reminisce about how he landed the gig, talk about a possible future collaboration with Lohan and consider how \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d remains so beloved after so many years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking back on the success of this film and how much people have embraced the sequel, could you ever have predicted the lasting appeal of \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAbsolutely not. I learned you just have to try to make a movie that you like and hope that other people like it too. You work just as hard on the ones that don\u2019t work as the ones that do. We certainly had a lot of fun making it. I remember during the very first test preview we did for this, every big person from Disney came. And we scored a 93 with this audience that stood and applauded at the end. Then Mike Eisner said, \u201cDo you have any ideas, anything you\u2019d like to shoot?\u201d And I said I had a funny idea for a funnier ending. He said, \u201cHow much is it going to cost?\u201d My line producer said, \u201cA quarter of a million dollars.\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, go do it.\u201d So we shot the ending where Rosalind Chao\u2019s character tackles the grandpa.<\/p>\n

Originally the grandpa and grandson were going to switch bodies?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt basically ended with an earthquake like earlier in the movie [implying a body switch]. We thought it would be funnier if they didn\u2019t even get to it and you have this ridiculously over-the-top body slam.<\/p>\n

Well, the family had been through enough \u2014 I think they deserved a break at that point.<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, for 21 years at least. Until the new one.<\/p>\n

Many people talk about how this film was a breakthrough for Lindsay Lohan but in many ways, it was also a big opportunity for you \u2014 it seemed to put your career on another level.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tFor sure. I made \u201cHouse of Yes\u201d and then I made another movie in between, a movie I don\u2019t even have a poster for because I\u2019ve acted like it\u2019s not mine. It completely bombed. I had a very aggressive producer who essentially kicked me out of the editing room during my director\u2019s cut, so I kind of disavowed the movie. I definitely felt like I was in movie jail at the time.<\/p>\n

How did you pitch yourself to Disney for \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI got the meeting and I remember going in and kind of feeling like they had a terrible script. I felt it would be really great to get this job, but I can\u2019t go in and tell them this script is good, because I\u2019d be lying. The script was about a girl who worked at a school newspaper and wanted to get an interview with Gwen Stefani at the House of Blues. And I said, \u201cWhy are you doing this? She can\u2019t be some nerd who works with the school paper and the mother\u2019s a nerd who\u2019s a doctor. This is \u2018Freaky Friday,\u2019 you have to have the mother and daughter be far apart. She needs to be rock and roll, she should be the lead guitarist in a band playing at the House of Blues and then the mother has to play guitar.\u201d And Disney, to their credit, said, \u201cWe like that.\u201d And that\u2019s what we ended up making. The success took us a bit unawares and I probably booked \u201cMean Girls\u201d off of that. It jump-started things for me in a big way.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask how you came to work with Lohan on \u201cMean Girls\u201d the following year \u2014 were you a package deal?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI know Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels and Sherry Lansing watched a rough cut of \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d and they decided they wanted both me and Lindsay. But I convinced everyone that Lindsay should be playing Regina, not Cady. Lindsay\u2019s energy is much more like Regina \u2014 I don\u2019t mean that in a negative way, she\u2019s just much more forceful and a really strong personality. I remember reading the Regina scenes with her and she was amazing.<\/p>\n

But when we went to cast Cady, we couldn\u2019t find anybody. I actually read an actress from Canada for the part and I told her, \u201cYou\u2019re way too old for this part, but I think you\u2019re a movie star, you\u2019re amazing.\u201d It was Rachel McAdams. And when we couldn\u2019t cast Cady, we went back to Rachel for Regina. And her reading a little bit older worked because it brought a certain power and maturity to it.<\/p>\n

\t\tAnd Lindsay was fine with switching roles?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShe was a little bummed, she thought Regina was more fun. But she ended up embracing it. And Sherry Lansing pointed out that with \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d such a big hit, she had to be the lead of the movie. It all worked out for the best.<\/p>\n

\t\tGoing back and looking at \u201cFreaky Friday,\u201d I am even more impressed by these performances. When Jamie Lee Curtis won her Oscar, I remember saying, \u201cThis is really for \u2018Freaky Friday.\u2019\u201d
<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, and \u201cA Fish Called Wanda\u201d and \u201cTrue Lies.\u201d She\u2019s an actress who never got recognized for these terrific performances.<\/p>\n

I only became aware recently that people had criticized the Asian representation in the film. Is that anything you wanted to address or acknowledge?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI was fully aware that it was over the top, and not in the way that I was trying to insult or make fun of any group. We\u2019re doing this just to be absurd. Rosalind Chao is a friend and she was in on the joke. But stepping back from it, of course it\u2019s absolutely absurd but not in a way that is mean-spirited. Not from my perspective, nor do I think most people who watch the movie think of as being mean-spirited.<\/p>\n

\t\tWas there a moment where you became aware of the criticism? Was it at the time?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI remember there was a great reviewer who loved the movie but of course called that shit out. [Said it] was tone deaf and a little bit over the top. But also noted it wasn\u2019t in a way that ruined their enjoyment of the movie.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhen you read something like that are you initially defensive or did you accept the criticism from the start?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI definitely didn\u2019t go, \u201cHow would you ever come up with that?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cThey have a point.\u201d I really love good reviewers; you don\u2019t see a lot of them anymore.<\/p>\n

\t\tWith two films back-to-back really launching this new phase of Lindsay\u2019s career, does she send you flowers ever week? Have you looked into another collaboration?
<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs) No. Back when she was younger, she definitely was into the lure of celebrity and fame and everything that went along with that. So she didn\u2019t seek out the best projects. She\u2019s got her head on straight in a really great way now at this stage in her life, but back then she was just a kid. She didn\u2019t have anybody around her who was guiding her well at the time. But we\u2019ve always been friendly with each other \u2014 we reconnected recently in New York when she was shooting a Netflix film. When we hung out recently, we did say it would be fun to find an excuse to do something together.<\/p>\n


Did you ever develop your own sequel to \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d?
<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI never developed one, no.<\/p>\n

\t\t
I\u2019m thinking about an interview tied to the 20th anniversary<\/a> where the sequel might have even been announced and you\u2019d say you\u2019d love to be involved as a producer or something.<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, unfortunately, I was not invited to the party. I did raise my hand and say I\u2019d love to be involved somehow, even in a kind of godfather aspect or executive producer. But I was not extended an invitation.<\/p>\n

\t\tThat surprises me!<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m very supportive of them making a great new movie. It would have been nice to be involved but now that I\u2019m not, I sort of compartmentalize it for myself. I need to devote my energy to keep making new, original things that are going to be hits and people can remake them in 20 years. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing now. You can\u2019t worry about the projects that you don\u2019t do. It certainly would have been fun, and I heard from quite a few cast members while they were shooting, saying, \u201cWhere the hell are you, Waters?\u201d I have not forsaken you! I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n

\n\t
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday remains a beloved weekday thanks to the box office success of Disney\u2019s sequel \u201cFreakier Friday,\u201d which reunites…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,109847,112516,14029,123012,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-347016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-freakier-friday","10":"tag-freaky-friday","11":"tag-jamie-lee-curtis","12":"tag-mark-waters","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}