After almost shooting his eye out in the original film, Peter Billingsley will be back as Ralphie in a sequel to A Christmas Story. Per Deadline, Legendary and Warner Bros. are teaming up for the project, and word is Billingsley has closed a deal to star in the sequel. Dubbed A Christmas Story Christmas, the sequel will reportedly be premiering on the streaming service HBO Max.
Reportedly, Julie Hagerty (Airplane) is up to play Billingsley's mother. Nick Schenk (The Mule) wrote the screenplay with Clay Kaytis (Christmas Chronicles) set to direct. Schenk will also executive produce with Billingsley producing along with his partner Vince Vaughn through Wild West Picture Show Productions. Cale Boyter and Jay Ashenfelter are overseeing the sequel for Legendary.
Per the outlet, A Christmas Story Christmas follows "an adult Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) in the 1970s, who returns to the house on Cleveland street to deliver his kids a magical Christmas like the one he had growing up. With the same attention to real-life tone of the first, Ralphie reconnects with childhood friends, reconciles the passing of his Old Man and sews the seeds for the origins of the beloved Holiday classic."
Clearly, this sequel is just the latest new movie to come along as part of Hollywood's new trend of doing legacy sequels to classic films. Bringing back original stars to reprise the roles they played decades later has proven to be very successful in certain cases, and perhaps the filmmakers see the potential in A Christmas Story doing the same, at least with Billingsley back to reprise his role. And it sounds like other classic stars will be popping up as well.
A Christmas Story 2 Already Exists, But They Probably Hope We'll Forget That
There have been other sequels developed for A Christmas Story, but none with Billingsley in the role of Ralphie. This includes a sequel of sorts that was previously released with 1994's My Summer Story. It takes place in the summer of 1941, following the events of A Christmas Story in 1940. However, as this film was released over a decade later, it features an entirely different cast. Kieran Culkin plays Ralphie in the movie with Mary Steenburgen and Charles Grodin as his parents. Jean Shepherd returned to provide the narration. The film has largely been forgotten to time.
Another sequel that actually had the name of A Christmas Story 2 was released directly to DVD in 2012. It ignores the events of the other sequels and picks up at Christmastime in 1946, six years after the first movie. Braeden Lemasters plays Ralphie in this film as Daniel Stern and Stacey Travis take over the roles of his parents. The reviews were largely negative and this film does not get talked about very much these days, failing the reach the levels of success as the original.
So, what will happen with A Christmas Story Story? Clearly, the hope is that fans will turn out to see the film with the actual actor who played the original Ralphie back in the role. The strategy attempted in the previous sequels involved putting new actors in the role of a child Ralphie, but perhaps the best route has always been to get the real Ralphie to return, even if he's much older now.