The Twins Sequel That Never Happened: Inside the Rise and Fall of Triplets

 

The long-promised return of Julius and Vincent

If you have already read my breakdown of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Twins salary deal over on FlipTheMovieScript, you know Twins is the little PG-13 comedy that quietly became Arnold’s biggest payday. The natural follow-up question fans kept asking for years was simple: if that movie worked so well, why didn’t we ever get a sequel?

For a long time, the answer was, “It’s coming.” That sequel even had a title: Triplets. The plan was to bring back Julius and Vincent Benedict, then throw in a third brother nobody knew about. It sounded like exactly the kind of high-concept nonsense eighties kids would show up for as adults.

And for a while, it was very real. Scripts were written, casting was announced, and filming windows were circled on calendars. Then it all quietly died.

Where Triplets came from

The Triplets idea started making noise around 2012. The basic hook was perfect: Julius and Vincent discover they are not just twins, but part of a trio, with a third brother who somehow turned out even more different than the first two.

Director Ivan Reitman explained that the spark came after Arnold spent time with another comedy legend. According to Reitman, the thought was simple and very on brand.

“I should be a triplet, that could be a very funny comedy.”

Once that line existed, the sequel almost wrote itself. The studio liked the concept, Arnold and Danny DeVito were in, and Reitman was ready to come back to direct. The tone was meant to match the original: a gentle, slightly absurd family comedy that still lets Arnold send himself up a bit.

Eddie Murphy, then Tracy Morgan: who was the third brother?

For years, the big selling point of Triplets was the third name on the poster. The first version of the movie was built around Eddie Murphy joining Schwarzenegger and DeVito as the long-lost brother. Arnold talked about it openly in interviews, saying Eddie was absolutely involved and that everyone was excited.

“Everyone is happy to do this movie.”

That version stalled because Murphy’s schedule exploded again after Coming 2 America. When his dance card filled up, the production team reworked the script for another comic who could bring the same kind of chaotic energy. By 2021, the role officially moved to Tracy Morgan, with Deadline and others reporting that he would play the third Benedict brother and that filming was aiming for early 2022 in Boston.

On paper, it sounded like a fun evolution of the original joke. You would have:

• Arnold as the engineered “perfect specimen” who still feels like an outsider

• DeVito as the small-time hustler who can’t quite get out of his own way

• Morgan as the wildcard brother dropped into the middle, reacting to these two weird opposites

The vibe was not gritty legacy sequel. It was older brothers, a new sibling, and a lot of denial about how any of this made sense genetically.

How Triplets was supposed to build on Twins

Story-wise, Triplets was not meant to blow up the original movie. It was meant to lean into it. Julius and Vincent would be older, crankier, and more set in their ways. The plot would revolve around the discovery that the genetic experiment behind their birth produced one more result the scientists never told anyone about.

That setup does what a good sequel should do. It lets you revisit the emotional core of the first film – two guys who were never meant to be brothers, figuring out what family means – and then stress test it. How do Julius and Vincent react when the universe hands them another sibling, one who may be less “perfect” on paper but more honest about who he is?

For fans who love digging into this kind of stuff, this is exactly the sort of project I flag in my Movie Facts Hub. It is not just trivia. It is a look at how Hollywood tries to bottle an old feeling and sell it to a new generation, sometimes decades after the first movie came out.

What killed Triplets and why it is officially dead

So, if the cast was set, the script was rewritten, and the money was lined up, what happened?

The turning point was Ivan Reitman’s death in 2022. He had been the creative anchor of both Twins and Triplets, and the person everyone trusted to keep the tone right. After he passed away, control over the project shifted, and that is where things fell apart.

Arnold has been very blunt about what happened next. In a later interview he said:

“Jason Reitman literally stopped the project when his father died.”

According to Arnold, they had financing in place, he wanted to do it, Danny DeVito wanted to do it, and Ivan had been enthusiastic. Once Ivan was gone, Jason Reitman decided he did not like the idea and put the brakes on for good.

From the outside, you can understand both sides. For the original team, Triplets was a chance to reunite old friends and pay off a long-teased sequel. For a son taking care of his father’s legacy, there is a real fear of turning a beloved, oddly gentle comedy into a late-career gimmick. Either way, the result is the same. Triplets is no longer in active development, and everyone involved now talks about it in the past tense.

What is left of the Benedict brothers

The good news is that Arnold and Danny are not done working together. Both have said they are developing another project, just not Triplets. The exact logline keeps shifting in interviews, but the energy is the same as it was back in 1988: two guys with wildly different body types and rhythms who genuinely like playing off each other.

In a way, that fits the legacy of Twins better than a sequel that arrived thirty-plus years later might have. The original movie already got its miracle: a huge box office run, a monster backend payoff, and a salary deal so wild I had to give it its own deep dive in my Arnold Schwarzenegger Twins salary deal article. Triplets would have been a victory lap. Instead, it is now one more Hollywood “what if” that lives in interviews, old scripts, and the heads of fans who still picture that Triplets poster that never quite existed.

Every Time Brendan Fraser Risked Himself Filming The Mummy

 

Yes, Brendan Fraser really passed out while filming the prison hanging scene in The Mummy in 1999. On the second take, the noose tightened enough to cut off blood to his brain and he blacked out on set. That one moment has become the headline story, but it was only one of several times Fraser put his body on the line to sell the illusion of Rick O’Connell. 

Brendan Fraser Was Built To Take A Punch

Before The Mummy, Fraser already had a reputation as the guy who would throw himself into a bit. Encino Man, School Ties, George of the Jungle, With Honors, all of those roles asked for some combination of charm and physical punishment. Stephen Sommers saw that mix and knew exactly what he wanted for his pulp adventure hero.

“He could throw a punch and take a punch and he had a great sense of humor. You really like the guy.”

That is the director’s way of saying this is the actor you can drop, hit, drag and slam into walls and he will still find a way to be funny while doing it.

Snakes Sandstorms And A Brutal Shoot In Morocco

The Mummy shoot in Morocco was not exactly a spa week. Cast and crew were dealing with desert heat, sandstorms, and a local wildlife situation that did not care about Hollywood insurance. Fraser has talked about how they were constantly warned about snakes and scorpions. Everyone was getting B12 shots whether they wanted them or not, just to keep going.

One of his more ridiculous memories had nothing to do with elaborate choreography, just basic survival.

“I was pissing down a rock and I look down and there’s the yellow dot snake. I was like ‘F—’ and just ran for it.”

That is the kind of set where even a bathroom break can turn into an action beat.

The Prison Hanging Scene That Knocked Him Out Cold

Then there is the prison hanging scene. On the page it looks simple. Rick is dragged out, dropped through the floor, and dangles there while the characters argue about his fate. On camera they wanted it to look rough and desperate, not like a stage trick. So they tied a real hemp rope into a noose, rigged the gallows, and Fraser agreed to lean into it as hard as he could.

The first take, he played it safe. He acted the choking, sold the struggle, hit his marks. Sommers wanted more. He asked them to take up the tension on the rope to make it look more real. Fraser agreed to one more take. The problem is arteries do not care about movie magic. It does not take much pressure for blood flow to cut off at the neck.

Fraser described the moment like this:

“I remember seeing the camera start to pan around and then it was like a black iris at the end of a silent film.”

Next thing he knows, he is on the floor, an EMT is saying his name, and there is gravel in his ear. He was done for the day. Somewhere between the director’s “a little tighter” and Fraser’s instinct to sell it, they accidentally crossed into the territory stunt coordinators warn you about in safety meetings.

And of course, because stunt people are wired differently than the rest of us, one came over afterward with the warmest welcome imaginable.

“Hi, welcome to the club, bro.”

Fraser has told that story with a laugh, but you can feel the underside of it. This was not just a cool behind the scenes fact. It is a guy literally being choked unconscious for a shot that lasts a few seconds on screen.

Stunts That Wrecked His Knees And Everything Else

The hanging scene was not the only time he pushed through pain. Sommers has said Fraser injured his knee during the shoot and kept working anyway. That is on top of all the running, diving, and slamming into stone walls on sets built to look like ancient tombs. The Mummy is full of practical effects. Collapsing ceilings, sand and dust rigs, mummies on wires, stuntmen in full body makeup throwing themselves at him. Fraser is right in the middle of it, again and again, taking those hits.

The Third Mummy And A Body Held Together With Tape And Ice

By the time he reached the third Mummy movie, he has said he was basically held together with tape and ice. Years of this kind of work had caught up with him. Back surgeries, knee surgeries, even procedures on his vocal cords. The Mummy trilogy did not break him all by itself, but it was a major chapter in the bill his body eventually came to collect.

What makes all of this stick in people’s heads is that he never plays Rick O’Connell like a guy who knows he is in a summer blockbuster. Rick gets scared. He gets hurt. He gets knocked down and scrambles back up again. The pain feels real because it often was. Fraser’s willingness to absorb that impact is a big part of why the movie still holds up.

Why His Risk Made The Mummy Feel Real

Looking back now, it is easy to say it was not worth it. No shot is worth someone’s long term health. Fraser himself has been honest about how the grind of stunts, injuries, and everything else in his life eventually pushed him out of the spotlight for a while. But it is also true that his commitment gave The Mummy a physical weight you do not always see in effects driven films.

There is a reason fans still talk about the prison hanging, the scarab run, the chaos in Hamunaptra and everything in between. It is not just nostalgia for an old adventure movie. It is respect for an actor who was willing to risk himself, sometimes more than he should have, to make a ridiculous story feel like it had real consequences.

That mix of charm and punishment, comedy and pain, is part of what made Brendan Fraser a star. It is also, ironically, what nearly took him away from audiences for years. Now that he is back, it is a lot easier to appreciate just how much of himself he left in the sand on that first Mummy set.

If you enjoyed reading this article, please stop by and check out our Ultimate Movie Facts hub where we list some really random and interesting behind the scenes movie facts.

How James Cameron Became James Cameron: From Sci Fi Kid to Titanic Storyteller

As a producer nerd trying to figure out my own path, I keep circling back to James Cameron. Not just because he made Titanic and Avatar, but because of where he started. Before the billion dollar box office and deep sea subs, he was a kid in Canada obsessed with art and science, sketching machines, building things that either went into the sky or into the deep. Then his family moved to California, and he did what a lot of us do when we are not sure yet. He bounced around community college, studied physics, switched to English, and eventually dropped out.

While he was driving a truck and doing blue collar jobs, he was quietly reverse engineering cinema. He would go to the USC library even though he was not enrolled, photocopy graduate papers on optical printing and visual effects, then go home and teach himself how this stuff worked. The mythic moment comes in 1977 when he saw Star Wars. He walked out of the theater and realized that people got paid to build worlds like the ones in his head. That was the line in the sand. He decided he did not want to just watch films, he wanted to make them.

The filmmakers he idolized tell you a lot about the kind of stories he wanted to create. He has talked about The Wizard of Oz, Doctor Strangelove, 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, Taxi Driver. That is a strange but revealing mix. Big color and fantasy, dark satire, pure cinematic awe, and character driven drama with real moral weight. Add in his love of visual effects pioneers like Ray Harryhausen and you get the blueprint. He wanted movies where spectacle and emotion are equals, where the engineering of the image serves the feeling instead of replacing it.

You can see that template hardening in his early work. The Terminator is basically a nightmare told with the logic of a mechanic. Aliens is a war film about a working class crew and a single mother fighting for a child. The Abyss turns underwater tech into religion. Over and over Cameron goes back to the same obsession. Put ordinary people in an extreme environment, make the physics feel real, then let the feelings explode on top of that reality. That is the part that hooks me as someone trying to produce my own work. He is not chasing cool shots in a vacuum. He is building emotional machines.

Titanic is where all of that finally clicks into one story. A real ship, a real night, a fictional love story that feels like it could have happened between two people history forgot to write down. He researched obsessively, down to carpet patterns and rivets, then staged set pieces like the Titanic grand staircase flood so that they played both as engineering flex and as human panic. If you want to see how deep he went on that sequence, it is worth reading a full behind the scenes breakdown of the Titanic grand staircase flood scene.

What fascinates me most is that for Cameron the goal was never just to build a big ship and sink it. He keeps saying in interviews that the real win on Titanic was not box office, it was that audiences believed in Jack and Rose. They cried over two people who never existed because the emotional truth sat on top of historical truth. If you want to go deep on what he calls his real Titanic achievement, there is a great piece that walks through his own words and priorities in the link above.

After Titanic, his ambitions get even bigger on paper. Avatar is him chasing a different kind of story. Less historical reconstruction, more myth. A planetary fable about ecology, colonialism, and technology, wrapped inside a digital world that lets him channel all those Harryhausen creature dreams at once. You can argue all day about whether Avatar or Terminator 2 is the better film, but as a storyteller in training I see them as parts of the same project. He keeps trying to build worlds that feel physically coherent so that the emotions land harder.

So which story has been his best so far. If you measure by cultural saturation across the globe, maybe the answer is Avatar. If you measure by pure craft of genre, you could make a strong case for Terminator 2. But if you are talking about the single story where everything he loves comes together, I still think the crown belongs to Titanic. It is the one where the tech vanishes. Most people do not walk out talking about motion control rigs or miniatures. They walk out talking about a door, a choice, a promise, a life that could have been. That is exactly what he was chasing.

From a producer perspective, there is another quiet lesson in how he got there. Cameron did not leap straight from truck driver to Titanic. He learned on cheap features, did effects work, wrote scripts that other people directed, and figured out how to stretch resources. That is why I keep cross studying something like the intricacies of shooting Good Will Hunting on a tight budget, where a completely different team used limited money and smart planning to build an enduring film. Case studies like that.

When I zoom out, Cameron’s arc is weirdly encouraging. He was a physics kid who loved monsters, a truck driver who haunted film libraries, a young director who blew up a cheap genre sequel so hard that studios had to take him seriously. He idolized big dreamers, but he built his own legend with small, focused choices. Study relentlessly. Obsess over craft. Marry spectacle to feeling. And then, when you finally get your version of Titanic, remember the thing he keeps reminding everyone of. The best special effect is still a story that makes people care.