Beverly D’Angelo was interviewed by Screen Rant while promoting her new film, “Violent Night,” when she talked about a 2010-era “Vacation” sequel that would have featured Clark and Ellen Griswold as a recently divorced couple. The script was co-written by actor Michael Rosenbaum and would have opened outside of a courthouse after the pair finalize their split. “But their daughter [Audrey] is getting married, and she’s adamant that they show up in Arizona or wherever she’s living, so they have to go across the country and get back together,” D’Angelo explained. “And what’s odd is, isn’t that kind of the movie that George Clooney just made? Something like that?” The movie D’Angelo is referring to is “Ticket to Paradise,” the rom-com starring Clooney opposite Julia Roberts.
“We saw it as, ‘Hey, it’s about Clark and Ellen and that family. Don’t we want to follow their story?’ But there’s something about demographics, and I think they didn’t want old people in it or something,” D’Angelo said. The project was ultimately scrapped in favor of the Ed Helms-led 2015 “Vacation” film, which saw Helms play an adult Rusty Griswold who attempts to recapture the trips of his youth now as a father himself. Still, a movie about a divorced Clark and Ellen bickering cross-country would have been an absolute delight to see — if only so Ellen could finally put Clark in his place and (hopefully) force him to stop taking his wife for granted.