Daddy's Home 2

Daddy's Home 2 is a 2017 American Christmas comedy film directed by Sean Anders and written by Anders and John Morris. A sequel to Daddy's Home (2015), it stars Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini, John Cena, with John Lithgow and Mel Gibson. The plot follows now reformed-fathers Brad and Dusty (Ferrell and Wahlberg), now co-parenting Dusty's kids, who have to deal with their own fathers (Lithgow and Gibson) visiting for the holidays.

Principal photography on the film began in Massachusetts in March 2017 and it was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on November 10, 2017. Although the film received generally negative reviews from critics, it grossed over $180 million worldwide on a $70 million budget.

Plot
After finally becoming friends at the end of the first film, Brad Whitaker and Dusty Mayron have a co-dad system where Dusty's two children, Megan and Dylan, take turns at each father's house. Dusty has also remarried, this time to Karen, a writer, and is stepfather to Adrianna, Karen's daughter. Brad and Dusty decide to do away with having two separate Christmases and instead do one "together Christmas." Dusty's tough fighter pilot/astronaut father Kurt and Brad's overbearing and over-cheerful dad, Don arrive for Christmas. Megan and Dylan warmly embrace Don, since he is very present in their lives, while Kurt hasn't seen the children since they were toddlers. Through jealousy of the affection the children show to Don, Kurt rents a large cabin through Airbnb, to house all of them through the holiday week.

Brad and Dusty's co-dad relationship is put to the test by Kurt's meddling. Brad's wife Sara also tries to bond with Karen but is taken aback by some of Karen's actions, like shoplifting clothes from a store. Dylan develops a crush on a little girl staying in the cabin next door. Brad gives him some “advice," and Dusty interjects when he finds out that Brad is having what looks like “the talk” with Dylan, when it had been agreed that Dusty would handle that. Finding the trees too small in a farm, they illegally go on to private property to cut one down. Brad mistakes a cell tower for a tree and is electrocuted. After bowling, the family goes out to take the kids to see Santa. While there, Kurt convinces Dylan to ask Santa for a shotgun, which he agrees to. While out hunting the next day, Megan accidentally shoots Kurt in the shoulder, sending him to the hospital. While Kurt is disabled, she manages to shoot two turkeys, surprising Kurt. Brad confesses to Sara that they love each other more than his dad loves him.

Brad, Dusty, Don and Kurt go to an improv comedy club, where Dusty sees Kurt picking up a woman at the bar and leaving with her, which annoys Dusty. Brad enters Don into the improv show, and Dusty chooses a topic of a husband confronting his cheating wife as the subject of an improv skit. As the skit progresses, it is revealed that Don has separated from his wife in real life. Sara comforts Don about his divorce in front of an eggnog bowl. When they leave, Megan and Adrianna take cups of alcoholic eggnog to drink. Brad says he knows that is why Dusty chose that particular topic, and to get back at Dusty, Brad has invited Adrianna's father, Roger, to the cabin for Christmas.

The entire family takes part in a Christmas manger representation. Brad gets into a fight with Dusty because he wants to play Joseph, which Dusty is currently playing. When Megan begins to swear, and Adrianna falls from being drunk, the crowd breaks up. Instead of Dusty fighting Brad, he almost comes to blows with Roger, and Don is repeatedly hit with ice-balls. On Christmas Day, the families all pack up to leave. On their way out of town, the families are forced back to town on account of a blizzard and are forced to take shelter at a movie theater, seeing Missile Tow, a fictional holiday action comedy film starring Liam Neeson. When the power cuts off during the movie, the families go to the lobby where each man confronts their father about the secrets, lies, and attitudes. After remembering some advice given to him by Kurt, Dylan walks toward the girl he has a crush on, to kiss her, but he doesn't kiss her and instead kisses Adrianna. Dusty tells Roger that loving Adrianna means loving her real father as well since he is also part of the family. Roger almost leaves without Adrianna, but has a change of heart after everyone breaks out into a song of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and decides to stay.

Sometime later, at the airport, Don and Kurt are preparing to leave to head back to their respective homes. Kurt heads with Don up the terminal escalators, where he reveals to Don that he switched out the tickets and they're going to spend New Year's in Las Vegas. As Brad's mom's flight arrives, Dusty and Brad discover that Brad's new stepdad is Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot of the "Miracle on the Hudson" flight. Brad and Dusty remember that they watched the film "Sully" together recently, and Brad appears to be welcoming towards him. Brad runs down the terminal and says that Sully will never replace his father, because Sully has only one great personal story, whereas his father has a million stories.

Cast

 * Will Ferrell as Brad Whitaker
 * Mark Wahlberg as Dusty Mayron
 * Mel Gibson as Kurt Mayron
 * John Lithgow as Don Whitaker
 * Linda Cardellini as Sara Whitaker
 * John Cena as Roger
 * Scarlett Estevez as Megan Mayron
 * Owen Vaccaro as Dylan Mayron
 * Alessandra Ambrosio as Karen Mayron
 * Didi Costine as Adrianna
 * Bill Burr as Jerry
 * Chesley Sullenberger as himself
 * Liam Neeson as himself

Production
In April 2016, the sequel was announced, with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg reprising their roles, Sean Anders and John Morris writing the script, and Anders directing. In January 2017, it was reported that Mel Gibson and John Lithgow were being sought to play the main characters' fathers in the film. The two were later confirmed to star, along with Linda Cardellini, John Cena, Owen Vaccaro and Scarlett Estevez, reprising their roles.

Principal photography began on March 20, 2017. Scenes were filmed in Concord, Massachusetts, Clinton, Massachusetts, Framingham, Massachusetts, Lawrence, Massachusetts and Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Release
The film was released in the United States on November 10, 2017.

Daddy's Home 2 was released on Digital HD on February 6, 2018, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 20, 2018.

Box office
Daddy's Home 2 grossed $103.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $76.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $180.4 million, against a production budget of $69 million.

In the United States and Canada, Daddy's Home 2 opened alongside Murder on the Orient Express, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 3,575 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $10.7 million on its first day, including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews at 2,500 theaters, up from the $1.2 million made by the first film. It went on to debut to $29.7 million, finishing second at the box office, behind holdover Thor: Ragnarok ($57 million). In its second weekend, the film made $14.4 million (a drop of 51.3%), finishing 4th behind Justice League, Wonder and Thor: Ragnarok.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 20% based on 123 reviews, and an average rating of 3.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A formulaic comedy that's unlikely to spread much yuletide merriment, Daddy's Home 2 can only muster a few stray yuks from its talented cast." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 30 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Alonso Duralde of TheWrap was critical of what he described as the film's sloppiness and laziness, saying, "Director Sean Anders and his co-writer John Morris execute what are supposed to be the laughs with blunt force. The jokes announce themselves with heavy footsteps, and almost none of them land, stranding a talented cast with terrible material that they’re straining to sell." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, saying: "After enduring last week’s lousy and lazy A Bad Moms Christmas, I would have bet it would be many a year before we’d see another holiday comedy more sour and cynical and profoundly unfunny. I sit corrected."

Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, writing, "I found the sequel better than the original—the writing sharper, the jokes fresher and smarter, the comic interaction between the lead characters consistently engaging. I mentioned this to my incredulous wife, who said, 'So you’re saying it's the Godfather, Part 2 of the Daddy’s Home series'."

Possible sequel
In an interview, Mark Wahlberg mentioned that they would like to get Liam Neeson for the third installment of the film.