Movies

Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reveal sequel title Freakier Friday: 'More fun' and 'more emotional'

In the sequel to 2003's "Freaky Friday," Curtis's Tess and Lohan's Anna switcheroo with Anna's teenage daughter and stepdaughter.

By Ryan Coleman

Updated on August 10, 2024 01:06AM EDT

The long-awaited sequel to 2003's Freaky Friday just got freakier.

At Disney's D23 fan event in Anaheim, Calif. on Friday, stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan joined forces to tease the new film, with a flashy new title.

"We have a new title, I don't if we should share it her," Curtis told her costar. Lohan replied: "These are the best fans in the world!" Curtis relented, whispering into Lohan's ear before the pari in unison shouted out, Freakier Friday!

The pair showed first-look photos of their characters, including Tess (Curtis) and Anna (Lohan) driving in a convertible, and the mother-daughter pair screaming at the camera with their hands on their faces - clearly in the throes of some body-swap-induced mania.

"For me it feels like no time has passed," Curtis shared. "We both get to play moms."

"It doesn’t even feel like work," Lohan responded, adding that this film is, "more fun, it’s more emotional." She told Curtis, "Seriously the only reason we are back here doing this is because of you."

A sequel to Freaky Friday was long in talks at Disney, among fans, and among original stars Curtis and Lohan. Both Curtis and Lohan, who play mother and daughter Tess and Anna Coleman, have spoken enthusiastically about the possibility of a sequel in the recent past. Lohan told Jimmy Fallon in 2022 that she and Curtis "did speak about it," adding, "we'd both be into it."

At a 2022 Halloween Ends fan event, Curtis responded to a sequel question from the crowd with the simple, "Freaky Friday remake? Absolutely." She posted a photo with Lohan to her Instagram the following year, tagging Disney and writing in the caption, "The strike is over so hopefully, we can switch places again in the near future!"

Curtis told EW in 2023 that the sequel "will happen. For sure. Oh, for sure. There's no question." But the ongoing WGA strike was stalling the project. She elaborated: "Stories require writers, and right now there are no writers because they're all fighting for their lives [...] Until those writers get paid correctly and protected by the producers that make billions off of them, we will not be able to tell you any more about the Freaky Friday sequel, except that it is happening."

The writers eventually settled their strike, and now Freakier Friday is coming.

The film is directed by Nisha Ganatra, who helmed her own tale of multigenerational sisterhood with 2019's Late Night, starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling. Ganatra also directed Tracee Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson in the 2020 comedy The High Note and has helmed episodes of Welcome to Chippendales and And Just Like That...

Returning to the cast are Freaky Friday original stars Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Rosalind Chao, Christina Vidal Mitchell, Haley Hudson, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Lucille Soong. New additions include The Good Place and The Acolyte star Manny Jacinto; Julia Butters, the breakout young star of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Sophia Hammons (Under Wraps); and Never Have I Ever star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.