‘Meet The Parents 4’ in the works, Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller returning

A fourth film in the Meet The Parents series is in the works, with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro returning to their lead roles.

The franchise follows Stiller’s hapless Greg Focker, a nurse who has to reckon with the family of his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo), particularly her parents Jack (De Niro) and Dina (Blythe Danner).

There have been three movies to date – Meet The Parents (2000), Meet The Fockers (2004) and Little Fockers (2010) – and now it appears that after 14 years, the characters are getting ready to return to the big screen.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, the fourth film is now in early talks, with John Hamburg, who has co-written all three films in the series so far, returning once more. No director is yet attached, although with Hamburg having helmed films including Along Came Polly, I Love You, Man and Why Him?, he is likely to be in the running himself.

The first film is a remake of an earlier 1992 independent film of the same name, which was made on a budget of $30,000 (£23,500). At various points, the 2000 film was linked with Steven Spielberg and Jim Carrey as director and lead actor respectively, but in the end the film proved to be a huge hit, grossing over $165million (£130million) and being one of the biggest hits of the year.

Meet The Fockers saw Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand join the cast, but it was less critically acclaimed. It did, however, score big at the box office ($522million [£410million] worldwide), and led to the third film. That instalment, which also featured Kevin Hart, Laura Dern, Jessica Alba and Harvey Keitel, saw box office takings come down to $310million (£240million) and was widely panned.

Elsewhere, Stiller’s new Christmas film Nutcrackers has been widely criticised by fans online, with some describing it as “without a doubt the worst movie I’ve seen in years”.

De Niro, meanwhile, is set to star as the US president in a new series by the creators of Narcos on Netflix.

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