Cheaper by the Dozen | |
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Directed by | Shawn Levy |
Screenplay by | |
Story by | Craig Titley |
Based on | |
Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Jonathan Brown |
Edited by | George Folsey Jr. |
Music by | Christophe Beck |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | 20th Century Fox [1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 99 minutes [1] |
Country | United States [1] |
Language | English |
Budget | $40 million [3] |
Box office | $190.5 million [3] |
Cheaper by the Dozen is a 2003 American comedy film directed by Shawn Levy. It is a remake of the 1950 film of the same name. Both films were inspired by the semi-autobiographical book Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and his sister Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It stars Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, Tom Welling, and Piper Perabo with supporting roles by Kevin G. Schmidt, Alyson Stoner, Jacob Smith, Forrest Landis, Liliana Mumy, Morgan York, Blake Woodruff, Brent and Shane Kinsman, Paula Marshall, and Alan Ruck. Outside of a passing mention of the Gilbreth name, the film has little connection with the original source material.
The film was released on December 25, 2003, by 20th Century Fox and grossed $190 million worldwide against a $40 million budget. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus criticized the film for its lack of humor. [4]
A sequel, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 , was released in 2005. Another remake was released in 2022 on Disney+.
Tom Baker is a football coach at a small rural college in Midland, Indiana, where he raised twelve children. His wife, Kate, has written her story in a book and hopes to send it to her friend for publication. One day, Tom unexpectedly receives an offer from his old friend and football teammate Shake McGuire to coach at his alma mater in his hometown of Evanston, Illinois. Tom accepts the offer, and demands all the children vote on moving. Despite losing the vote, Tom has the entire family return to Evanston for a better home and space. The atmosphere at the Bakers' new house is tense and the situation at school is even worse.
When her book is ready to pick up for publication, Kate is required to do a national book tour to promote it. Tom thinks that he can handle everything in the family's household while Kate is away, so he hires the family's oldest child, Nora, and her self-absorbed boyfriend, Hank, to manage the children. When Nora and Hank arrive, the younger children plan to make Hank the target of their prank by soaking his underwear in raw meat and assisting the Bakers' pet dog Gunner to attack him by biting his buttocks, prompting him to refuse to assist in babysitting. As a result, Nora drives off with Hank, while Tom lectures and grounds the younger children for their prank.
After Kate departs for her book tour, Tom realizes that he cannot handle the children on his own after a chaotic night. He tries to hire a housekeeper, but nobody is willing to work with a family as large as the Bakers. As a result, Tom decides to bring the football players from work into his house for game practice in the living room and backyard while the children perform chores and their household games. However, they start causing trouble at school and inadvertently ruin their neighbor Dylan's birthday party (despite Dylan actually enjoying the chaos), and Charlie, the Bakers' oldest son, is removed from his schoo's football team due to continuous truancy caused by bullying. Kate eventually overhears from the children about the chaos and cancels the book tour to take charge of the situation. Her publisher decides to create an additional promotion for her book by inviting Oprah Winfrey to tape a segment about the Bakers in their home instead.
Despite much coaching from Kate, the Bakers are not able to demonstrate the loving, strongly bonded family that Kate described in her book. When Mark, one of the younger children, becomes upset that his pet frog has died and his sister Sarah callously insults him and tells him that no one cares, a heated fight erupts moments before the segment starts, leading the cameramen to call Winfrey to cancel it. Later that same evening, Mark, fed up with the fighting and feeling like an outcast, runs away from home, prompting the Bakers to band together to find him, and Nora dumps Hank when he selfishly refuses to help in the search. Tom indulges a hunch that Mark is trying to run back to the Bakers' old home, and eventually finds Mark on an Amtrak train departing from Chicago to Midland.
Reuniting with the rest of their family, the Bakers begin to address their issues with each other, and Tom ultimately resigns from his position at his alma mater, turning down a dozen job offers until he finds a flexible one close to home. Kate's book stays on the best-sellers list for an entire year, and the Bakers come out of the entire experience closer than before.
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performed by | Length |
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1. | "I'm Just a Kid" | Simple Plan | Simple Plan | 1:24 |
2. | "Help!" | Lennon–McCartney | Fountains of Wayne | 1:12 |
3. | "In Too Deep" | Sum 41 | Sum 41 | 2:46 |
4. | "What Christmas Should Be" | Hilary Duff | Hilary Duff | 3:10 |
5. | "Life Is a Highway" | Tom Cochrane | Tom Cochrane | 4:26 |
6. | "These Are Days" | 10,000 Maniacs | 10,000 Maniacs | 3:39 |
7. | "Rockin' Robin" | Leon René | Michael Jackson | 2:33 |
8. | "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" | Johnny Marks | Brenda Lee | 2:06 |
Total length: | 21:16 |
Other compositions used in the movie are "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams and Carl Orff's "O Fortuna", among others.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 24% rating based on reviews from 119 critics and an average score of 4.58/10. The site's consensus reads: "In this family of twelve children, much chaos ensues, but little hilarity." [4] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 46 out of 100 based on 30 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an A− grade. [6]
Despite this, the film was given "Two Thumbs Up" from Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper on their television show.[ citation needed ] Ebert in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and called it "lighthearted fun". [7]
Robert Koehler of Variety was critical of the uneven tone of the film, varying between "schmaltzy/gooey and slapstick/gross-out" and wrote that it was "as far from the original pic and its autobiographical memoir source as it can be while retaining the same title" but predicted a wide-ranging audience for the film. [8]
The film ranked at #2 for the weekend, grossing $27,557,647 in its opening weekend ($35,397,241 including its Thursday Christmas Day gross of $7,839,594) from 3,298 theaters for an average of $8,356 per theater ($10,733 average per theater over four days), being kept from the top spot by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . The film went on to gross $138,614,544 in North America, and an additional $51,597,569 internationally, for a total gross of $190,212,113 worldwide, nearly five times its $40 million budget. [3]
Ashton Kutcher was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor for his performance in this, Just Married and My Boss's Daughter but lost to Ben Affleck with Daredevil , Gigli and Paycheck . [9] [10]
Association | Category | Recipients | Result | Ref. |
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Kids' Choice Awards | Favorite Male Movie Star | Ashton Kutcher | Nominated | |
Teen Choice Awards | Choice Movie: Blush | Hilary Duff | Nominated | [11] |
Choice Breakout Movie Star – Male | Tom Welling | Nominated | ||
Choice Movie Liplock | Piper Perabo and Ashton Kutcher | Nominated | ||
Young Artist Awards | Best Young Ensemble Cast | Cast (under 18) | Won | |
Best Young Actor Age Ten or Younger | Forrest Landis | Won | ||
Best Young Actress Age Ten or Younger | Alyson Stoner | Nominated |
The film was released on VHS and DVD on April 6, 2004 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. [12]
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Cheaper by the Dozen is a 1950 American comedy film based upon the autobiographical book Cheaper by the Dozen (1948) by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film and book describe growing up in a family with twelve children, in Montclair, New Jersey. The title comes from one of Gilbreth's favorite jokes, which played out in the film, that when he and his family were out driving and stopped at a red light, a pedestrian would ask: "Hey, mister! How come you got so many kids?" Gilbreth would pretend to ponder the question carefully, and then, just as the light turned green, would say: "Well, they come cheaper by the dozen, you know", and drive off.
Belles on Their Toes is a 1950 autobiographical book written by the siblings Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It is the follow-up to their book Cheaper by the Dozen (1948), and covers the period after Frank Gilbreth, Sr. died. It was adapted as a film in 1952.
Ernestine Moller Gilbreth Carey was an American writer.
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Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. was an American journalist and author. He co-authored, with his sister Ernestine, the autobiographical bestsellers Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes. Under his own name, he wrote multiple additional books, such as Time Out for Happiness and Ancestors of the Dozen, and a long-running newspaper column.
Belles on Their Toes is a 1952 American family comedy film based on the autobiographical book Belles on Their Toes (1950) by siblings Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The film, which debuted in New York City on May 2, 1952, was directed by Henry Levin, and Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron wrote the screenplay. It is a sequel to the film Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), based on Gilbreth and Carey's eponymous 1948 book.
Cheaper by the Dozen is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, published in 1948. The novel recounts the authors' childhood lives growing up in a household of 12 children. The bestselling book was later adapted into a feature film by Twentieth Century Fox in 1950 and followed up by the sequel, Belles on Their Toes (1950), which was adapted as a 1952 film.
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The Cheaper by the Dozen franchise consists of a series of films and stage adaptations, based on the real-life events of the Gilbreth family. Based on novels co-written by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, the film series includes two biographical films and three loosely-remade family comedy films inspired by their story. The general plot centers around the lives of parents with a large number of children. Each depicts familial relationships, and working through the challenges that arise with an over-sized household.
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