Edward Burns had one of those fairy tale Sundance debuts most filmmakers only dream about. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in 1995’s The Brothers McMullen, a film finished on a shoestring budget only for it to be selected for the festival, become a smash hit on Main Street, get acquired by Fox Searchlight and land the first timer a grand jury prize for his efforts before he hopped a plane back to New York.
In a wild twist of events, Burns is back 30 years later with a second installment in The Family McMullen. Ahead of its streaming debut this weekend on HBO Max, Burns talked to The Hollywood Reporter about how he found his way back to the DNA of the first film, what took so long and why he relied on his young stars to help him find that special sauce to appeal to a new generation of moviegoers: “My films only work if they feel real and authentic.”
How does it feel to be doing an interview about this film 30 years after The Brothers McMullen?
Quite honestly, the feeling is blessed. It was a little surreal at times to be back working with [Connie Britton, Michael McGlone and Shari Albert]. It was also very surreal to go back into my childhood home where we shot the first film that my parents sold 20 years ago. To walk into my childhood bedroom and the kitchen where I spent the first 25 years of my life was completely strange. But I say blessed because it took a long time for me to figure out what the sequel was going to be. It took a long time to write. It took a long time to get financed, and fortunately Warner Bros. and HBO Max said yes. And here we are.
What was the process to secure your childhood home for filming? Did you knock on the door and have to explain to the new owners who you were and why you wanted to film there?
That’s exactly what our location scout did. They went out first and knocked on the door but they weren’t terribly interested. I have a buddy who still lives on the block and he knows the owner a little bit. He went back, pleaded our case and was able to convince them that they should do it. We only needed a day, and it turned out they were very happy we were there. It all worked out.
I’m sure we could talk for hours about the writing of it and how you settled on where to take the story. Can you tell me about how that came together and when you actually started writing?
I was at Sundance in 1995 with The Brothers McMullen, and I remember literally getting off the plane from New York and going to the premiere of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise. I watched [Robert Redford] introduce Rick on stage and I thought to myself, that’s the career I want. When I saw the rest of the films in his trilogy, it occurred to me that I should start thinking about a McMullen sequel. I started to write for the 20th anniversary and I just really couldn’t crack it. I couldn’t find the story. Then, five years later, I read an article about how a lot of kids in their 20s moved back in with their parents because they couldn’t afford to live on their own or buy homes because of housing costs. That’s where it started and how I figured out a way into the story with [my character] Barry having two kids that moved back home.
Connie Britton and I have remained great friends and I speak with her all the time. She’s become a very big star and I knew that I wanted her to be one of the leads. So, I called her and told her that I wanted to make her a widow and sort of the third McMullen brother. I asked her if she’d be interested in re-exploring these characters if I could do that and she said, “Absolutely. Get writing.” We wrote the script and fortunately Warner Bros. and HBO Max said yes. From there, we were up and running with a couple of false starts in between finishing the script and that moment. But we made it.
Family dynamics have long been at the core of your work since the debut. This film feels like it has the same DNA but also feels more of the moment for 2025 with the younger actors. How hard was that to crack and how important was it to infuse it with young characters?
I knew that I would have the older characters, the OGs if you will, and give them their moments. But I knew for the movie to really work, my character’s children had to be the center of the piece, given that it was going to be a romantic comedy. More so than the first film, I really wanted to kind of lean into the rom-com side of it. The first film has moments and scenes that are more dramatic, a little heavier. I really wanted this to be fun and funny all the way through. Granted, there’s conflict, but I think that it puts a smile on your face.
I’m 57 now, and trying to write for people who are 24 and 26. Part of the job of being a writer is being able to do that. I had a couple of subplots that were launching spots for me. I did a series a couple of years ago called Bridge and Tunnel that featured all these young characters, so I did the same thing here that I did on that series. I told Pico, Juliana, Halston and Sam, “Look, I’m not 25. This is what the scene needs to be. We start here and end here. But feel free to change any line of dialogue so that it feels authentic for today and how people your age might speak and handle this type of situation. To their credit, they jumped at the opportunity to work with me on that to make sure their voices felt real. My films only work if they feel real and authentic.
The Family McMullen streams on HBO Max beginning Dec. 5.
