Last month, it was announced that Universal was going ahead with American Reunion, the fourth official American Pie sequel and the first to reunite the main characters since American Wedding in 2003. At the outset, Jason Biggs, Sean William Scott, and Eugene Levy were signed on and ready to ride the gravy train again while the rest of the original cast were in talks. We now have another confirmation, courtesy of Deadline.
Alyson Hannigan, who played Michelle the band camp nerd/nympho that became Jim’s (Biggs) wife in the third film, has officially signed on to reprise her role. Hannigan, who’s been tearing it up over the past few years on CBS’s one good show How I Met Your Mother, was one of the big question marks when it came to the casting since she has better and more fulfilling things to do. They seemed to have reigned her in though, so she’ll be back to participate in the raunchy (likely tired) sex jokes.
For those of you correctly tuning out news of American Reunion, the plot revolves around the gang from the first American Pie, erm, reuniting. They are at all different stages in their life; Jim and Michelle are married with a child and his almost-sex tape with Nadia (played by Shannon Elizabeth in the original) has hit YouTube and become a viral sensation all over again. Stifler (Scott) has become a loser with a crappy job. Oz (Chris Klein) has a mansion and a super hot possibly gold-digging girlfriend (makes sense, that’d be the only reason I’d date Chris Klein). The other characters…look, they don’t matter. They’ll be there, clogging up the screen.
If you can’t tell, American Reunion is something I could not be less interested in. The first two American Pie movies were funny, but American Wedding was terrible and the straight to DVD spin-off sequels featuring the endless members of the Stifler clan have ranged from “I can tolerate it” to “someone put Mercury in my beer, I beg of you!” I don’t really think anyone was asking for these people to reunite, but Universal loves them a cash grab and actors love easy paychecks. I don’t hold a lot of hope of this recapturing the magic, but we’ll see.
American Reunion is being written and directed by John Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle), and will begin production in May if things work out the way everyone’s hoping.
Do you honestly care about another American Pie movie? If you do, explain yourself.