The Family Stone Sequel Is Filming in Brooklyn — First Set Photos With Sarah Jessica Parker & More

Grab the mulled wine. The Stone family is coming home.

Twenty-one years after Meredith Morton walked into that snow-covered Connecticut house and got absolutely steamrolled by the most lovable chaos machine of a family in movie history, the gang is officially back together. Cameras have started rolling on The Families Stone — the sequel to the 2005 holiday favorite The Family Stone — and the first on-set photos tell us everything we hoped: this is really, finally happening.

On Wednesday afternoon (October 21), Sarah Jessica Parker and Dermot Mulroney were spotted arriving on set in Brooklyn, New York, where the film is shooting. Fellow original cast members Claire Danes and Luke Wilson were seen too. And in what may be the most intriguing sighting of the day, Maggie Siff — who did not appear in the first movie — was also photographed on set, seemingly confirming she has joined the cast for the new film.

Filming Is Officially Underway in Brooklyn

Searchlight Pictures announced the sequel last month, ending two decades of will-they-won’t-they chatter about a follow-up to Thomas Bezucha’s beloved Christmas comedy-drama. And the studio didn’t just dip a toe in — Bezucha himself is back to write and direct, the same filmmaker who turned the original’s dysfunctional-family Christmas into one of the most rewatchable holiday movies of the modern era.

Here’s who we know is returning: Rachel McAdams (the gloriously prickly Amy), Mulroney (Everett), Luke Wilson (the hopelessly sweet Ben), Parker (Meredith), Danes (Julie), Tyrone Giordano (Thad), Paul Schneider (Brad), Brian White (Patrick) and Elizabeth Reaser (Susannah), plus Craig T. Nelson as the family patriarch Kelly. That’s essentially the whole house. The Stones are gathering again, and if the first set photos are any indication, the energy is right where we left it.

No release date has been announced yet — the project was only confirmed in September — but with cameras rolling this fall in New York, a holiday-season arrival would feel less like a guess and more like an inevitability. This is a Christmas movie. You don’t start filming it in October for a summer release.

The Story: Dad’s Bringing a Guest This Christmas

So what’s the plot? The official logline, confirmed to Entertainment Weekly, sets the scene: “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.”

That’s the new love interest — and she’s played by none other than Jean Smart. Searchlight announced Smart’s casting on September 23 with a short Instagram post that read, simply, “Welcome Jean Smart to The Families Stone.” The internet promptly lost its mind.

And honestly? It’s inspired casting. The woman has to walk into a movie where the entire premise is a family testing the outsider — that’s literally the engine of the first film, where Meredith got run through the wringer before earning her place. Only this time, the outsider is a 75-year-old Emmy-winning force of nature arriving as Kelly’s girlfriend, and the kids are all grown up with their own baggage. The power dynamics practically write themselves.

Smart is coming off her latest Emmy win for the final season of Hacks, where she spent five seasons reminding everyone she might be the best comic actress working in television. Her résumé reads like a masterclass: Designing Women, Frasier, Mare of Easttown, Watchmen. Putting her in a room with this ensemble is the kind of thing that makes awards voters start paying attention in December.

Jean Smart and the Legacy of Sybil Stone

Of course, there is one person who won’t be at the table. Diane Keaton, who played the Stone family matriarch Sybil, died on October 11, 2025, at the age of 79. Her family said she passed away from pneumonia.

It is impossible to overstate what Keaton meant to this film. In the 2005 original, Sybil was the heart of the house — warm, funny, fierce, and hiding the cancer that would take her by the final act. Keaton played her with the kind of loose, unguarded brilliance that had defined her entire career, from Annie Hall (for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress) to The Godfather films, Father of the Bride and The First Wives Club. She was honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017, and she is survived by her two adopted children, Dexter and Duke.

The sequel addresses her absence head-on. The story picks up two decades after Sybil’s death, and the family she held together is now reuniting around the man she married. It’s a brave narrative choice — rather than recasting or tiptoeing around the loss, the film makes it the emotional engine of the whole thing. A widower finding love again. A family that has to let someone new in. Keaton’s Sybil would probably have had opinions about that. That’s the point.

Her co-stars haven’t forgotten her. At the 98th Academy Awards in March, Rachel McAdams took the stage during the In Memoriam segment to honor Keaton personally. “A legend with no end,” McAdams said, before sharing a Girl Scouts quote the late actress had often cited: “Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver, the other is gold.” Try watching that speech without crying. You can’t.

Who’s Back — and Who’s New

The returning lineup reads like a “where are they now” of peak-2000s ensemble casting, and every single one of them has had a fascinating two decades. Parker’s Sex and the City revival And Just Like That wrapped its run, McAdams has become one of the most respected film actresses of her generation, Danes collected Emmys for Homeland, and Luke Wilson has quietly built one of the most reliable careers in comedy.

Then there’s Maggie Siff. The Sons of Anarchy, Mad Men and Billions actress wasn’t in the first film, so her presence on the Brooklyn set this week is genuinely new information. Who is she playing? Nobody’s saying. A new partner for one of the Stone kids? A neighbor? A wedding planner caught in the crossfire? Her casting suggests the sequel isn’t just retracing old steps — it’s expanding the family circle, which is exactly what you want from a movie set twenty years later. People grow. Families add chairs to the table.

And behind the camera, Bezucha’s return matters more than it might seem. Sequels to beloved one-off films fail most often when a new filmmaker tries to imitate the original’s tone without understanding it. Bezucha wrote the Stones. He knows where the bodies are buried — emotionally speaking. Having him back means this has a real shot at feeling like a continuation rather than a reunion special.

Why This Sequel Actually Makes Sense

Let’s be honest: most legacy sequels arrive because someone ran out of ideas. This one feels different, because the original left a genuinely unfinished story. The Family Stone (2005) ended with Meredith and Everett’s relationship solidified, Julie and Everett’s unexpected spark resolved, Ben pining from the sidelines, and Sybil’s death casting a long shadow over a family that had just figured out how to be honest with each other.

It was never a perfect film — critics were split at the time — but audiences adopted it hard. It became a December staple, the kind of movie you put on while wrapping presents because you want to feel something. The breakfast-table chaos, the Christmas-morning pile-on, Sybil’s quiet strength: these are characters people have lived with for twenty years. You can’t manufacture that kind of affection. You can only earn it, and then, eventually, you can revisit it.

The twenty-year time jump is the smartest thing about the whole project. These characters aren’t frozen in amber; they’ve aged, lost their mother, built lives, made peace with old wounds. A sequel that catches up with a family at a genuinely new chapter — a father daring to love again, adult children who are now the generation in charge — has something real to say. That’s the difference between a cash grab and a continuation.

So here’s where things stand: cameras are rolling in Brooklyn, the family is (mostly) all here, Jean Smart is about to walk into the most intimidating Christmas dinner in movie history, and Diane Keaton’s memory hangs over every frame in exactly the way it should. If Bezucha and this cast can bottle even half of what made the original special, next December is going to hit hard.

The Stones are coming home for Christmas. Try not to cry at the trailer. You won’t manage it.

Source: Just Jared