The Family Stone Sequel Reunites Sarah Jessica Parker and the Original Cast, With Jean Smart Joining as Dad’s New Love Interest
Searchlight Pictures is bringing back nearly the whole ensemble from 2005’s holiday favorite The Family Stone for a sequel titled The Families Stone, reuniting Sarah Jessica Parker, Rachel McAdams, Claire Danes, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Luke Wilson, Tyrone Giordano, Elizabeth Reaser, Paul Schneider, and Brian White under returning writer and director Tom Bezucha. The one cast member who can’t come back is Diane Keaton, who played matriarch Sybil Stone and passed away in October 2025 at age 79, and the sequel folds her absence directly into the story instead of recasting the role.
Jean Smart Joins as the Family’s New Wildcard
Rounding out the new cast is Jean Smart, who steps in as a love interest for Craig T. Nelson’s patriarch, Kelly Stone. The plot picks up 20 years after Sybil’s death, with the Stone family gathering for Christmas once again, only for Kelly to spring a surprise on everyone by inviting the woman he’s fallen for to meet the family, a mirror of the original film’s setup where Parker’s character was the outsider brought home for the holidays.
Jean Smart joins The Families Stone as the newest addition to the returning ensemble cast.
Finishing What He Started
Bezucha has said working on the script while grieving Keaton left him “haunted by the loss of Sybil for months,” calling her death “a blow on a tender bruise already.” The sequel is being produced by Michael London and Shannon Gaulding of Groundswell Productions alongside Parker and Alison Benson of Pretty Matches Productions, with filming set to begin this fall in New York. No release date has been announced yet.
The original Family Stone turned an $18 million budget into roughly $92.9 million worldwide back in 2005 and earned Parker a Golden Globe nomination, cementing the film as a Christmas rewatch staple even after mixed reviews at release. Two decades later, Searchlight is betting that same ensemble chemistry, now with Smart added to the mix, can pull off the trick twice.
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Picture Source: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0), Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)
