Searchlight Pictures has greenlit a sequel to The Family Stone, and it is bringing back nearly every member of the 2005 cast under a new title, The Families Stone. Tom Bezucha, who wrote and directed the original, returns in both roles, with production set for New York this fall.
The returning cast is Claire Danes as Julie Morton, Rachel McAdams as Amy Stone, Dermot Mulroney as Everett Stone, Craig T. Nelson as Kelly Stone, Sarah Jessica Parker as Meredith Morton, Luke Wilson as Ben Stone, Tyrone Giordano as Thad Stone, Elizabeth Reaser as Susannah Stone, Paul Schneider as Brad Stevenson and Brian White as Patrick Thomas. Searchlight released a cast poster with the announcement that arranges all ten in the shape of a Christmas tree.
Jean Smart Joins The Family
Jean Smart is the first new name in the cast. She has signed on to The Families Stone fresh off her fifth Emmy win for Hacks. Deadline says her character is being kept under wraps, but Variety’s version of the logline names Smart as the woman Kelly Stone has fallen in love with and invites home to meet the family. Searchlight has not confirmed the role itself.
The Story Picks Up Twenty Years After Sybil
The one name missing is Diane Keaton, who played matriarch Sybil Stone and died in October 2025 at 79. The original film ended with the reveal that Sybil was terminally ill, and the sequel builds directly on that. Searchlight’s logline reads: “Twenty years after their mother’s passing, the Stone family reunites for Christmas only to face the season’s biggest surprise: their father has unexpectedly invited the woman he’s fallen in love with to meet the family.”
Bezucha first said he was working on a sequel a month after Keaton’s death, telling CNN at the time that the script was already underway when he learned she had died. Wilson read it in July and called it “really funny,” adding that it was “so nice that everybody wants to work together again” and that “after the death of Diane Keaton, it’ll be even more meaningful because she was so great to be around on the first one.”
A Holiday Favorite That Never Had A Sequel
The Family Stone was released December 16, 2005, by 20th Century Fox and grossed about $93 million worldwide against an $18 million budget. Everett brings his tightly wound girlfriend Meredith home to meet his bohemian New England family, she asks her sister Julie to come for support, and the visit falls apart into shifting loyalties.
Searchlight, which Disney acquired with the rest of 21st Century Fox in 2019, has not set a release date, and the poster says only “coming soon.” Michael London, who produced the original, returns alongside Shannon Gaulding for Groundswell Productions, and Parker produces with Alison Benson for Pretty Matches Productions. Searchlight’s fall slate already includes Wild Horse Nine, which screened at Venice this month.
For the latest news and updates make sure to follow us on social media! Facebook | Twitter | Threads | Instagram | TikTok
