Freakier Friday has proven that the beloved body-swapping film from 2003 has legs for future installments, but determining where the franchise could go next requires some creativity. Though there have been many Freaky Friday films, only the 2003 classic has been popular enough to warrant a sequel, with Freakier Friday living up to lofty expectations.
Freakier Friday upped the ante of mother and daughter switching lives by having double the body-swapping, with Lindsay Lohan’s Anna and Jamie Lee Curtis’ Tess switching bodies with Anna’s daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter, Harper and Lily.
While everything returns to normal by Freakier Friday‘s ending, there is still room for the franchise to continue on if it proves to be financially successful for Disney. If a third movie can even be conceived, it might have to be willing to indulge in some truly absurd ideas.
10
A Six-Way Swap Becomes Freakiest Friday
As part of the sequel’s release, director Nisha Ganatra revealed one possible direction Freaky Friday 3 could go in an exclusive interview with Screen Rant. When we asked her what Freakiest Friday would look like, she teased that a six-way body swap could be in store by adding Manny Jacinto and Chad Michael Murray’s Eric and Jake to the mix.
Ganatra’s answer shouldn’t be treated as the official concept of the sequel, but it does provide a foundation for what she could do with another movie. Having Eric and Jake swap places would certainly provide for some hilarious moments, especially if Tess, Anna, Harper, and Lily also swap bodies in some fashion.
9
Summer Switch
It’s a little-known fact that the original Freaky Friday from 1976 is based on a children’s novel of the same name, written by Mary Rodgers. There are many differences between the book and the 2003 movie, but the source material actually did have its own obscure sequel released by Rodgers in 1982, тιтled Summer Switch.
Here, the brother and father of the original young protagonist are given their own body-swapping mishap, stranding the father in summer camp while the young lad tries to navigate life as a H๏τ-sH๏τ Hollywood producer. A tame idea for the next Freaky Friday installment could be to put a male spin on the time-honored story, perhaps using Ryan and Eric.
8
Freaky Friday The 13th
Though not technically part of the Freaky Friday franchise, the 2020 Vince Vaughn horror comedy Freaky pays clear tribute to it. In this film, a teen girl inadvertently swaps bodies with a classic silent slasher villain, played by Vaughn himself. There’s no reason not to expand the Freaky Friday timeline by canonizing this spiritual spin-off.
But there’s another beloved franchise centering on the last day of the work week that could have some unexpected synergy with the Freaky Friday series due to the fact that, in the first movie, the Friday the women swap bodies falls on the 13th. Thusly, a three-way crossover between Freaky Friday, Freaky, and Friday the 13th might be just crazy enough to work.
The plot could see Tess or Anna swapping bodies with Jason himself, seeking out help from the only other person who has survived such a scenario, Kathryn Newton’s Millie. Though a licensing nightmare on paper, entering the Friday the 13th films into the fray would make for an amazing escalation of stakes.
7
A Billion For Boris
Looking back once again at the original Freaky Friday novel, Mary Rodgers had more ideas beyond simply extending the format of switching minds and bodies to the male members of her Andrews family. Enter the third book in the loose series, A Billion for Boris, named after the original female protagonist’s childhood friend.
In this sequel, Annabel Andrews and Boris find a magical TV that’s capable of seeing into the future. The pair use the magical device to get rich quickly, making a killing betting on horse races. It may seem like a total non-sequitur, but maybe a completely fresh set of supernatural circumstances are needed to keep the Freaky Friday films fresh.
6
Swapping Bodies With An Animal
Perhaps there aren’t any humans the cast of Freakier Friday could swap to that would put a meaningful new spin on the formula, with no combination of mind and body swaps making a huge difference. Luckily, there’s another direction entirely that the series could look to in hopes of putting a fresher spin on the concept.
Throwing Tess or Anna’s mind into the body of a pet or even a wild animal might be a hilariously fun way to further test the strength of their mother-daughter relationship. Sadly, the Coleman family doesn’t seem to have a dog or other suitable candidate, but the third Freaky Friday could get creative with their new animal actor.
5
Body Swapping With A Stranger
The whole conceit around Freaky Friday’s body swapping is the goal of strengthening the relationship between mother and daughter by giving each other a literal new perspective. But that same bonding exercise could play out very differently with the simple change of making a total strange the recipient of Tess, Anna, Lily, or Harper’s body.
Finding a way to work together with a family member to undo the situation is already difficult enough, but adding in the extra boundary of total unfamiliarity could add a whole new layer of challenge to the ordeal. It would be amazing to see two completely unrelated characters learn about each other’s lives by experiencing them with no background knowledge in real-time.
4
A World-Wide Body Swap
In many iterations of Freaky Friday, the oncoming body swap is heralded by a mysterious earthquake that can seemingly only be felt by those the change will be affecting. One way a third movie could truly turn up the excitement would be to see the whole world feel this earthquake at once, leading to mᴀss chaos.
A movie that describes the entire planet swapping bodies with someone else would almost be apocalyptic in scope, but it would certainly be an interesting logline to see Disney tackle. While it could easily turn out to be the darkest Disney movie ever made, the whole world experiencing one truly Freaky Friday might just be worth the risk.
3
Freaky Monday
While the Freaky Friday books only have two direct sequels, original author Mary Rodgers did lend her hand in writing a spiritual successor with a similar тιтle, Freaky Monday. Yet another body-swapping story, this tale follows a Type A teen girl named Hadley as she finds herself swapped with her eccentric, easygoing teacher, Ms. Pitt.
Part of what made the dynamic of the 2003 Freaky Friday work so well is the contrast between the rebellious, punk-rock teen daughter and her upтιԍнт, orderly mom. Reversing the roles between the two ages could make for an interesting exploration of a generational divide that hasn’t really been described in a mainline movie before.
2
Every Freaky Friday Movie Protagonist Switches
The 2003 movie is far from the only film loosely adapting the events of Freaky Friday. There have been films of the same name released with the same supernatural tale of mother-daughter bonding in 1976, 1995, and 2018, to varying degrees of success. Perhaps forwarding the franchise means combining them all into a single story.
While the 2018 and 1995 made-for-TV films wouldn’t have any especially iconic actors general audiences would recognize, making Freaky Friday 3 into a Jodie Foster feature to homage the 1976 original would be an amazing choice. Perhaps she, Lindsay Lohan, and Jamie Lee Curtis could engage in a messy three-way body swap that lasts for longer than usual.
1
Post-Swap Death Throws A Horrifying Wrench Into The Action
If there’s one thing Freaky definitively proved, it’s that the concept behind Freaky Friday has a lot of frightening potential for a good horror movie. A good way to lean into this element of the series more would be to answer the age-old question of what happens when one person dies while in the middle of a classic body swap.
It could be that doing so would send the body’s controlling mind back into their original body, forcing them to cohabitate with the technically deceased. Better yet, they may be stuck as a walking corpse, hoping to find some way back into their own living body despite the new owner’s desperate attempts to keep it for themselves.
There are all sorts of horrific avenues a third movie could take with this pitch, even if it might be a good deal more macabre than the sort of family-friendly territory the series is used to. In any case, it’s the kind of dramatic departure the next Freakier Friday movie needs to stay relevant.
