Peter Billingsley Returns To Iconic Christmas Role, Ralphie, 40 Years Later
By Movieguide® Staff
The A CHRISTMAS STORY star Peter Billingsley recently announced that he would make his return as Ralphie in the upcoming sequel, A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS.
Billingsley, 51, starred as the iconic character in the 1983 Christmas movie, and said that he is ready to return to the character.
The sequel takes place 33 years after the events of the original, as Ralphie is now an adult, Ralph Parker, with children of his own. However, he and his family return to his childhood home after the sudden death of his father, The Old Man played by Darren McGavin in A CHRISTMAS STORY.
The upcoming sequel is not the first for A CHRISTMAS STORY, which saw sequel’s in 1994 and 2012, it is the first time Billingsley has been involved with the project since his childhood role.
And while there have been multiple sequels to A Christmas Story — including the 1994 theatrical release It Runs in the Family and 2012’s direct-to-video A Christmas Story 2 — A Christmas Story Christmas, which is out now on HBO Max, is the first time Billingsley has been involved in a continuation of the Parker family’s story.
“You really want to try to create something that could stand on its own, that’s original,” Billingsley told PEOPLE of the sequel. “If you re-approach something like this, you’ve got to get it right.”
“In movies, you want to play offense — you want to do something great, you want to have momentum, do great storytelling,” he added. “But in this one, you gotta play defense too because you have to protect, I think, its association to the original. And there’s not only a fan base for this, but it’s borderline sacred for a lot of people.”
Billingsley said that another reason that he decided to start working on A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS four years ago was because of the birth of his own children, a daughter, 5, and 2-year-old son who he shares with his wife, Elizabeth.
“A lot of people have said, ‘Why now?’ for this movie, and definitely being a father in real life [paralleled] being able to channel being a father in A Christmas Story Christmas,” he explained.
“It was a nice opportunity to channel my writing, producing and acting all back into one,” he added.
A portion of Movieguide®’s review of A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS reads:
A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS is a sequel to the 1983 Christmas classic A CHRISTMAS STORY. Streaming on Netflix, it shows a grown-up Ralphie who has to plan a wonderful Christmas for his family just like his old man used to do for him and his brother. Ralph’s father has suddenly died a week before Christmas. So, Ralph takes his wife and two children to visit his mother for Christmas. Ralph decides he wants to create the perfect Christmas for his family, to honor his father’s memory. The question is, Does he have what it takes to give his family a Christmas to remember?
A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS is a funny, heartfelt sequel that honors fathers and grandfathers in wonderful ways. Peter Billingsley returns as the adult Ralphie and does another great job. The movie has some positive, but usually brief, Christian references, including references to the Christmas star and the “Silent Night” of the Nativity. However, some scenes occur in a friend’s bar where people are drinking beer and whiskey. A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS also has some foul language. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution.
A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS is available to stream now, on HBO Max.
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