How Malcolm in the Middle reboot Life’s Still Unfair came into being – and keeps the crazy
Frankie Muniz rejoins Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek 20 years later as a grown-up Malcolm with a teenage daughter, on Hulu and Disney+
A very grown-up Malcolm turns to the camera at the beginning of the Malcolm in the Middle revival and, weirdly, has nothing to complain about.
“Yeah, I look different, but, hey, everything about me is different. I’m happy. I’m successful,” he says. “My life is fantastic now. You want to know how I did it? All I had to do is stay completely away from my family.”
That is going to be very hard to do in Hulu’s four-part Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, which reunites one of the zaniest and most chaotic families on prime time. The episodes are also available on Disney+.
Twenty years after the last episode aired, we learn that Malcolm – a nervous, sputtering Frankie Muniz – is now a father of a teen and desperate to shield her from his dysfunctional parents and siblings.
“I cannot go back to the way I was before and I’m not going to risk you,” Malcolm tells her. “You have to think of it like they’re the full moon and we’re werewolves.”
Original series creator Linwood Boomer and his co-producer wife, Tracy Katsky Boomer, batted ideas on how to get the gang back together for years. Neither was willing to make just anything for a “shameless cash grab”.