‘Freakier Friday’: How Nisha Ganatra Minted Box Office Gold

How do you reboot Freaky Friday — a 2003 cult classic about a mother and daughter swapping bodies — over two decades later? Well, if you’re Disney, you hire director Nisha Ganatra.

The NYU Tisch alum has spent her career making comedies that sneak something radical into the mainstream — from Chutney Popcorn, about a queer woman who agrees to be a surrogate for her “perfect” sister, to Late Night, which follows Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) as she breaks into late night comedy.

Ganatra sat down with us to chat about the grueling eight-round process to land Freakier Friday, how she turned a $40 million budget into over $98 million at the box office, and her tricks for coaxing both comedy and heartbreak from stars like Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Manny Jacinto, and Saturday Night Live actors Chloe Fineman and Vanessa Bayer.

In fact, Reader, I would argue Freakier Friday’s secret to success might just be how it masterfully channels Hindi cinema: there’s a wedding, a dance rehearsal, a psychic, and even a South Asian pop diva (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). As Ganatra put it, “It’s really tough to get a studio film. You have to convince so many people that you’re not going to blow it.” Consider us convinced.