‘How I Met Your Father’ Finally Lands At Hulu With Hilary Duff As Lead
After aeons in development hell, a spin-off/reboot of the hugely popular ‘How I Met Your Mother’, titled ‘How I Met Your Father’, has finally found a home, as Hulu orders a 10-episode series with Hilary Duff set as the lead.
Much like the original series, this will begin in the near future, with Duff playing Sophie, a mother explaining to her son how she met his father. The comedy catapults us back to the year 2021 where Sophie and her close-knit group of friends are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options.
A new version of the show has been in development since way back in 2014, when the original series created Carter Bays and Craig Thomas wrote a pilot for CBS alongside Emily Spivey, which was ultimately not picked up. Then in 2016, a second attempt was written by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, but they became unavailable due to the other little show they were producing called ‘This Is Us’ becoming quite popular! In 2017, a third attempt was made, written by Alison Bennett (‘You’re the Worst’), but again, that didn’t get picked up.
This fourth try, which has been given a straight-to-series order by Hulu, sees ‘This Is Us’ EP’s Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger step back into the show as creators, writers and exec producers. Duff will also exec produce alongside original creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. HIMYF will use the same mix of multi-camera and single-camera as HIMYM, giving it a similar look and feel to the original.
“Kids, I’m going to tell you an incredible story: It’s the story of how two writers got lucky enough to make their dream TV show for nine seasons and now get to pass the torch to an inspired new creative team with their own incredible story to tell, the story of How I Met Your Father,” commented Bays and Thomas in a statement. “We are honoured by their passion and vision, and look forward to helping them tell a legendary new story. (Thanks to all the HIMYM fans out there who waited for it.)”
At the moment, this seems to be something of a reboot rather than a spin-off as such, although it is entirely possible we may see some of the original cast pop up if they are sharing the same universe. As of right now, Duff is the only confirmed cast member.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career to play some wonderful characters and I’m looking forward to taking on the role of Sophie,” adds the Duff. “As a huge fan of How I Met Your Mother, I’m honoured and even a little nervous that Carter and Craig would trust me with the sequel of their baby. Isaac and Elizabeth are brilliant, and I can’t wait to work alongside them and all of their genius. Just fangirling over here getting to join the Hulu Originals and 20th families. I realize these are big shoes to fill and I’m excited to slip my 6 ½’s in there!”
Although the original series aired on CBS in the USA, it was produced by 20th Television (or 20th Century Fox Television as it was at the time), hence the reason this has landed at Disney-owned Hulu. As a Hulu Original, ‘How I Met Your Father’ is likely to end up airing on Disney+/STAR internationally, but we won’t know that for sure until they make an announcement closer to the release date. We’ll let you know when we hear something.
