It does sound as though audiences can expect a third Bad Moms movie in the future, but the trio of moms won’t be the same that we’ve grown used to since they’ll be the bad grandmas instead, as Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines, and Susan Sarandon appear to be set to appear in the third movie. But where does that leave Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn? They were, after all, the original Bad Moms that decided to stop being the type of moms that people expected and found a great deal of pleasure in being the types of moms they wanted to be. What they discovered in the last two movies was that it was important to speak up and speak out when they felt as though they were being taken advantage of, but there was also a compromise to be made with those they were rebelling against. In a lot of ways, it was a positive experience born out of the chaos that each mom was feeling after being taken advantage of so often and having insane expectations foisted upon them on a daily basis.
But even though both movies were well-liked, the second did pull in significantly less than the first movie, which kind of indicates that if the third movie doesn’t find a way to raise the bar even higher, it could see the Bad Moms label start to slip just a bit. Without a doubt, Baranski, Hines, and Sarandon can sell a movie in a way that would make people want to sit down and take a look, but the fact is that the younger trio did manage to grab hold of the audience and keep them entertained for two movies. This could work for or against the third movie depending on how the script is formed and how far the bad grandmas are going to be allowed to push things.
It does go without saying that a lot of parents happened to find these movies insanely funny, not to mention relatable since having kids, responsibilities, and the stress that comes with being a parent can sometimes wear a person out and make them decide to quit for a while. But the reaction that the moms in these movies had, despite liberating, stands out as a fantasy that a lot of us would likely want to explore for a while just to see if it fits, or perhaps just to see if we could handle it. There are plenty of people that might think that they could make something like this work, but there are plenty that would be incapable of simply cutting loose, either out of propriety or something else that might keep them from acting out in such a way. But the fact that this was what the movies were based around makes it easy to see why a lot of audience members would cheer the three women when in reality they would be seen as insanely disruptive and would be kicked out of every store they managed to act out in. The movies make things feel a lot more relatable and far more rational than they usually are, and that’s why people love them.
But what could a Bad Grandma’s movie bring to the table? Each actress is amazing on-screen and they have the credits to prove it. They even had great chemistry in the second Bad Moms movie which was fun to watch, but they also had their younger counterparts there to help round out the movie. So unless the younger trio is there in the third movie, can this really work? The Bad Moms movies have been built up about mothers with young children and teens and the challenges they have to deal with, essentially making the fathers out to be less effective at parenting to create the idea that the mothers are doing everything they can just to run the household and their own lives. Looking at it in this way makes it feel a bit unbalanced since it’s true, the fathers in these movies are rather ineffective, until one counts the single father played by Jay Hernandez, even if he becomes eye candy for the rest of the female cast.
A movie with three grandmothers shifts the dynamic, however, since these are women that have raised their children and seen them take on their own responsibilities. Seeing grandmas rebel against being upstanding and motherly old ladies sounds funny, but it’s something that needs to be handled in a manner that allows for comedy and drama in a manner that people will find relatable. Otherwise, it feels as though the third movie might end up being less effective than the second one. Bad Moms has thrived on the idea of younger mothers that felt overwhelmed with everything life had tossed at them, which makes a bad grandma’s movie feel like the aftermath, which will definitely need a boost of some sort.
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