Streaming reboots of beloved 2000s comedies tend to arrive with the built-in problem of audiences already loving the version it has, and every new casting choice getting read as either a betrayal or pandering. So when fresh set photos surface from a redo of a millennial rom-com touchstone, fans tend to look very hard at exactly who is standing in the frame.
This week, new photos from a Santa Monica shoot show the reboot’s incoming lead flanked by two performers audiences will recognize at first glance, both of whom anchored the 2004 original that made the property such a comfort watch in the first place.
Those faces are Jennifer Garner and Judy Greer for 13 Going on 30, aka fashion-editor heroine Jenna Rink and her scheming frenemy Lucy Wyman. The pair were photographed in costume alongside Emily Bader, the new Jenna, in images first published Tuesday by Just Jared.
Garner’s presence is not, on its own, a shock. She has been attached to the Netflix project as an executive producer since it was announced back in March, with People We Meet on Vacation director Brett Haley reimagining the story and Bader starring opposite Logan Lerman. What the photos add is Garner in costume rather than behind the monitor, and Greer on the call sheet at all, the first real sign she is involved in any capacity.
Days earlier, promoting their Apple TV series The Last Thing He Told Me, the pair had played down the idea of returning even as they left the door wide open. Greer told Variety she would do “literally anything that Jennifer Garner asked me to do,” pointing out that Garner, as executive producer, was now her boss again. Garner, for her part, joked about sneaking into the background of a Thriller dance number.
Netflix has not confirmed that either actress is playing her original character, and declined to comment on the casting when asked. The reboot’s logline is also still under wraps, which leaves the nature of the two appearances genuinely open. Garner and Greer could be back as older versions of Jenna and Lucy, which would tip the film toward a legacy sequel rather than a straight remake, or they could be playing new characters entirely, a wink for the viewers who grew up with the original. The set photos suggest a scene the pair share with Bader.
One name is still missing from the photos, and it is the one that would settle things. Mark Ruffalo, who played love interest Matty Flamhaff, has not been linked to the shoot, and his involvement, or absence, would do more to answer the sequel-versus-reboot question than anything Netflix seems willing to say (or not say) while cameras are still rolling.
