The problem with wimpy kids is that they don’t stay wimpy kids.
More than seven years ago, the filmmakers behind the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie chose young Zachary Gordon to be their Greg Heffley — the titular, relatable boy of Jeff Kinney’s half-billion-dollar Wimpy Kid publishing empire.
Today, taller and more chiselled at nearly 20, Gordon looks more like a young teacher at a middle school rather than a beleaguered student at one. Likewise, such memorable Wimpy Kid actors as Devon Bostick (who played elder brother Rodrick) and Robert Capron (best friend Rowley) have aged out of the roles that they inhabited so seamlessly in the first three Wimpy Kid films.
So for the new release in the series, which marks a return for the franchise after five years away, Kinney and his team chose to change the entire cast, including the parents.
“Making a fourth Wimpy Kid film with the original cast wouldn’t have been possible,” Kinney says of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, which is currently showing in the UAE. “The kids grew up and grew out of their roles, and we knew we’d hit the end of the road with them.”
Yet director David Bowers and his fellow creatives were up for starting the whole casting process again.
“The team that worked on the first three films was eager to get back into the Wimpy world,” says Kinney of the franchise, which has grossed about $175 million (Dh642.6 million) in the US. “For the studio and producers, these are fun films to make. I think that’s what drove the decision more than anything.”
For the title role, the filmmakers made a smooth transition, casting 11-year-old Jason Drucker, who is similar enough to Greg Heffley 1.0 that the effect isn’t overly jarring.
“Casting is the most essential, and most difficult, part of making these movies,” Kinney says. “You really can’t go forward until you have the right Greg, and once you’ve got Greg nailed down, you go from there.
“Getting the audience who liked the first three films to embrace the new cast is a challenge, of course, and we certainly encountered some resistance,” continues Kinney, “But I think the new cast does a great job and makes you believe they’re a family. [And] having David Bowers back was a big help to keep a sense of consistency in the film universe.”
To recast the parents — played by the gifted Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris in the first films — the filmmakers turned to two familiar faces: Tom Everett Scott, who co-starred with Zahn in Tom Hanks’s That Thing You Do! two decades ago, and Alicia Silverstone, who at that same time was nailing her breakthrough role in Amy Heckerling’s Clueless.
“I thought Tom was perfect as Frank Heffley — he’s got great comic chops, but he also brings a lot of warmth to the role,” says Kinney, who in the ‘90s himself was attending the University of Maryland and drawing for the student newspaper.
“The first time I saw Tom was in [1997’s] American Werewolf in Paris, and I liked him in that. He’s got a lot of charisma,” says Kinney of Scott, whose recent work includes 13 Reasons Why and La La Land. (Kinney also notes that, coincidentally, the Steve Zahn/Tom Scott friendship runs deep: “Tom was the best man at Steve’s wedding.”)
The latest Wimpy Kid film marks another milestone for Kinney: This is the first one for which he receives a screenplay credit. “I wrote the first two drafts of this film. I loved writing for the screen, but there was a learning curve for me,” says Kinney, who also owns and runs the Plainville, Massachusetts, bookstore, An Unlikely Story (which he calls “one of the great joys” of his life).
“I hope I get to do more of it in the future,” Kinney says of screenwriting, “if not for the Wimpy Kid world, for other projects.”
Don’t miss it!
Diary of a Wimpy Kid is now showing in the UAE.
