Focker In-Law Trailer Hilariously Pits Ben Stiller Against Ariana Grande

Roughly 26 years ago, Ben Stiller buried Sylvester Stallone at the box office when the Stiller-starring "Meet the Parents" captured the mainstream comedy zeitgeist, leaving the Stallone-led "Get Carter" remake in its dust. The scale of the film's success might've surprised Universal Pictures, but the studio knew it had multiple elements working in its favor. "There's Something About Mary" had transformed Stiller into a rom-com superstar, while "Analyze This" had turned his co-star, Robert De Niro, into a viable comedy lead. Add in director Jay Roach, who was red hot thanks to the "Austin Powers" movies, and this reeked of a guaranteed hit.

"Meet the Parents" isn't a classic, per se, but it is a very funny PG-13 comedy that you can watch with the whole family around the holidays. That said, one time around with De Niro's retired, ridiculously protective CIA agent Jack Byrnes and Stiller's frazzled groom-to-be Gaylord "Greg" Focker was enough. Universal, however, looked at the film's $330 million gross and greenlit a sequel. "If you thought Jack and Greg were mismatched, wait'll you see how the Byrnes mesh with Greg's eccentric parents!" Or so the thinking went. 

Universal was spot-on commercially, but critics panned the movie's 2004 follow-up, "Meet the Fockers." Then came "Little Fockers" in 2010, an abysmal film that grossed $311 million against an obscene $100 million budget. This is when Universal wisely tapped out.

16 years later, though, the studio is betting that moviegoers had "Little Fockers" bleached from their brains and are thus amped to see De Niro hook Ariana Grande up to the polygraph machine in "Focker In-Law." The stars of "Meet the Parents" (itself a remake of a very dark comedy you almost certainly haven't seen) are back, but are they also on autopilot? Let's examine the just-released trailer.

The first trailer for "Focker-In-Law" debuted at CinemaCon 2026 following an introduction from stars Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. Stiller highlighted that in the new movie, his character, Greg, is now in De Niro's character, Jack's, position, while newcomer Ariana Grande's character, Olivia, is the new Greg. However, nothing is simple in the "Meet the Parents" universe, which seems to exist solely to torture Ben Stiller in new and inventive ways. The same goes for "Meet the Fockers," which reveals Olivia, the potential new wife of Pam (Teri Polo) and Greg's son Henry (Skyler Gisondo), as a former FBI hostage negotiator. Meaning, she's an expert at emotional manipulation. 

While retired CIA agent Jack is immediately smitten with Olivia, Greg is convinced she's up to no good and unworthy of joining the family's "circle of trust." Greg is going to stop at nothing to prove that Olivia is bad news for the family, and Grande looks like she's about to force us to re-rank our list of her best performances.

From the looks of it, "Focker-In-Law" looks like a return to form for the franchise, a sincerely funny comedy with a storyline and plenty of hijinks that are completely in line with each character. Watching Ben Stiller's Greg get overly competitive on a cycling trip harkens to the time he got a little too into volleyball and broke his future sister-in-law's nose in the middle of a friendly game. Color us surprised and cautiously optimistic for a great flick. 

"Focker-In-Law" arrives in theaters on November 25, 2026.