Robert De Niro just reminded Ben Stiller exactly who holds the Academy Awards.
The two actors reunited onstage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. They walked out to debut the first trailer for the highly anticipated comedy sequel Focker-In-Law. The presentation quickly turned into a live roast. De Niro praised new cast member Ariana Grande to the crowd. He called the pop star “the single most talented screen partner I’ve been lucky to share the screen with.”
Stiller jumped in. “In a way, she’s kind of like the new Ben Stiller,” he joked. De Niro did not miss a beat.
“She got an Oscar nomination,” De Niro shot back. “How many of those do you have?”
The banter escalated from there. Stiller tried to defend his box office track record. He specifically compared his voice work in the animated hit Madagascar to De Niro’s legendary turn in Raging Bull. De Niro flatly rejected the comparison. “I prefer the one with the Minions,” he told the CinemaCon crowd. This was a highly calculated nod to Universal Pictures, the studio distributing both the Despicable Me franchise and the new Focker sequel.
Focker-In-Law officially hits theaters on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2026. John Hamburg returns as director after co-writing previous entries in the series. The new footage confirms Grande plays Olivia Jones. She is a former FBI hostage negotiator engaged to Greg Focker’s now-adult son, Henry. One scene in the trailer shows Grande sitting down for the franchise’s infamous lie-detector test. De Niro’s Jack Byrnes administers the interrogation. Skyler Gisondo takes over the role of Henry Focker, with Beanie Feldstein also joining the cast.
The core legacy actors are all back. Owen Wilson, Blythe Danner, and Teri Polo reprise their roles, according to a report published by The Independent.
This release ends a massive 16-year hiatus for the property. Little Fockers hit theaters in 2010. The original Meet the Parents launched a massive pop culture wave back in 2000. Across three films, the series grossed over $1.13 billion globally. Now, Universal is betting heavy on a generational refresh.
Casting Grande is a massive demographic pivot. She just came off a major theatrical run in Wicked. Now she brings an entirely new Gen Z audience to a comedy franchise built for older millennials and Gen X. Fans are already dissecting the trailer dynamics online, a trend noted in recent coverage by India Today.
The narrative structure of Focker-In-Law completely flips the script on the original 2000 film. Stiller’s deeply neurotic Greg Focker has aged directly into the antagonist role. He is now the overbearing, paranoid father-in-law. It is a 26-year character reversal. Grande plays the outsider. She has to navigate the exact same family gauntlet Stiller faced decades ago, breathing new life into a classic piece of Hollywood entertainment.