My Best Friend’s Wedding fans have been saying a little prayer for a sequel since the ‘90s, and much of the film’s cast is in agreement.
The romantic comedy premiered in 1997 and follows Julianne (Julia Roberts), a food journalist who realizes she is in love with her best friend Michael (Dermot Mulroney) after he gets engaged to Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). To win Michael over, Julianne spends the week before his wedding trying to break him and Kimmy up. Things take a turn for the more complicated when she brings in her gay BFF George (Rupert Everett) to play her pretend fiancé.
“We really got lucky coming together,” Roberts told E! Daily Pop in April 2022. “None of us knew each other before we made the movie, and we just had a really great chemistry. It just worked. I mean, we all really liked each other. Dermot and I are still really great friends — we talk all the time, And I think that that is a testament to the beautiful time that we all had making this film together.”
The rom-com, which was directed by P.J. Hogan, was shot on location in Chicago and marked Roberts’ return to the genre that made her famous with 1990’s Pretty Woman. While it eventually went on to be a box office hit — bringing in a domestic gross of $127 million — it initially faced harsh reviews in test screenings from viewers who were disappointed in the movie’s original ending, which saw Julianne finding love with a wedding guest (John Corbett) after being turned down by Michael.
“The focus group didn’t want Julianne to have a happy ending,” Hogan explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “They still hadn’t forgiven her. They just weren’t ready for her to end up in the arms of another guy. I thought the answer was George, because the film really worked when Rupert was on camera. Rupert and Julia’s chemistry is so great.”
Hogan tweaked the final act in the film to have Julianne walk off into the sunset with her platonic soulmate, George, instead.
“When I read the [final scene] I couldn’t believe it. It’s beautiful,” Everett gushed to EW. “The whole end is so wonderful and tragic in a way. It’s very, very moving. And that’s another thing in the film: It’s a comedy, but it’s got things that are really, really touching and moving.”
More than two decades later, fans are ready to see Julianne’s next chapter. Keep scrolling for everything the cast of My Best Friend’s Wedding has said about a potential sequel:
