Dust of the playbook and your closet full of suits because How I Met Your Mother is getting the sequel treatment — starring Younger‘s Hilary Duff, no less.
The series, titled How I Met Yout Father, has been ordered by US streaming service Hulu and will feature Duff as Sophie who regales her son with the story of how she met his father back in the year 2021. The ten episodes will see Sophie and her friends navigating the world of dating apps and endless options whilst also trying to work out who they are and what they want out of life. There is no word yet as to how the spinoff will tie into the original series.
How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, who wrote the series based on their own formative experiences in New York City, will return to executive produce the new iteration.
In a statement, Duff — who can currently be seen in the seventh and final season of Younger — said, “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.
“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… I realize these are big shoes to fill and I’m excited to slip my 6 ½’s in there!”
Acknowledging what made the original series so immensely popular, Duff told Variety, “I’m such a fan of the original cast. They were absolutely seamless and brought me many laughs.”
She added, “I knew I had to be the one to bring Sophie to life and share the female POV to this legendary show.”
Carter and Bays expressed their excitement at the project saying, “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.
“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.)”
The OG How I Met Your Mother spanned nine seasons from 2005-2014 and starred Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel, and Alyson Hannigan with Full House star Bob Saget as the voice of future Ted Mosby who was telling the story of how he met his kids mum.
The series was praised for its ambitious filming techniques that traversed multiple timelines as Ted told the — very long-winded and entertaining — story of meeting the love of his life.
After the series ended in 2014 (with one of the most divisive finale’s of all time) a spinoff was in the works at broadcast network CBS called How I Met Your Dad. The follow up was set to star Ladybird director Greta Gerwig as the protagonist but was ultimately not picked up for a series order.
While we all know and love Josh Radnor as the lovelorn Ted, the character was almost played by someone else entirely.
In an episode of SiriusXM’s The Covino & Rich Show that aired in January 2021, Jason Biggs revealed that he had been offered the role — and the chance to reunite with his American Pie co-star Hannigan, who played Lily Aldrin on the hit series.
“I was offered the role and it’s probably my biggest regret, you know, on passing. I think I was in a phase of, at the time – it sounds so, so obnoxious to say right now – but at the time it was like, ‘OK, do I want to do TV?’ I don’t know that I was quite ready to go that route. I passed on it and then, you know, two things happened very soon thereafter. One, that show blew up. We all know what happened with that show. And two, I was like, ‘I want to do TV!’”
Meanwhile, the news that Duff will be lending her talents to How I Met Your Father has us wondering what this means for the Younger spinoff that is being developed by Darren Star.
Here’s hoping that the actress can do both projects as that would truly be the epitome of legend-wait for it-dary.
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