My Dad Thinks He's Five
Genre: Family Comedy / Magical Realism
Budget Estimate: $3–6 million
Logline: When a stressed-out lawyer dad wakes up acting like a five-year-old after his son makes a wish on a magical charm, his teenage daughter must take charge of the household—and her emotionally regressed father—until they can figure out how to bring the grown-up back.
Comps: Big, 13 Going on 30, Change Up
Coverage: Laugh out loud funny. Well-defined, classic characters. Themes of family and unity are excellently explored and never fail to resonate. The dialogue is undoubtedly one of the chief strengths.
Market Positioning: Built on a classically commercial premise with fresh generational dynamics, My Dad Thinks He’s Five is perfectly suited for a family-oriented streamer or major studio label like Disney+, Paramount, or Sony Pictures. It blends the nostalgic heart of 80s/90s body-swap comedies with modern emotional intelligence and female-forward character arcs. Highly adaptable for a wide family audience, the film offers breakout comedic roles for both a teen lead and an adult actor capable of childlike transformation.
One-Page Summary
When overworked lawyer Jim Forman gets his kids for an extended visit while his ex-wife is on her honeymoon, he hopes to reconnect with his moody teenage daughter Sarah and wide-eyed son Kyle. But work pressures and emotional distance threaten to turn the ten-day visit into another parenting failure—until Kyle, feeling neglected, wishes on a magical charm that his dad could be "more like he used to be."
The next morning, Jim wakes up acting exactly like a five-year-old—emotionally, mentally, and behaviorally. He’s silly, impulsive, and utterly dependent, leaving Sarah to manage the household, navigate high school drama, and keep her father from getting fired. With Kyle overjoyed and Sarah overwhelmed, the two siblings must form an uneasy alliance to guide their “new” dad through daily life without revealing the bizarre truth to anyone else.
On the plus side, Jim’s childlike enthusiasm starts to thaw the icy walls between the three of them. But with responsibilities piling up, Sarah hits her limit—and Kyle starts to realize that having a playful dad isn’t as magical as he imagined. To restore their father and heal their fractured family, they’ll have to work together, confront what broke them in the first place, and figure out how to wish him back… before their dad’s professional life falls completely apart.