Is the 2003 Film ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ Based On a True Story?

Some movies build their premise around a true story and make it the central focus of their marketing. Ripped-from-the-headlines cinema is a genre all its own, and it has a dedicated fan base waiting for a more dramatic telling of real-life events. Other stories, however, aren’t so clearly connected to reality, leaving viewers wondering if what they watched was mined from the depths of the writer’s mind or taken from a true-to-life inspiration. In the case of 2003’s Cheaper by the Dozen, there’s a bit of both. 

‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ was a remake 

In 2003, Cheaper by the Dozen hit theaters. The film’s starring cast included comedy dynamo Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, and Piper Perabo. 

The film’s comedic charm tackles the challenges of a big family undergoing big changes. When Tom (Martin) and Kate (Hunt) suddenly have to navigate exploding career potential with their 12 children, their lives are turned upside down. Tom believes he can find the secret to efficiency in their home that will allow everyone to “have it all,” but the strain might be more than the family bursting at the seams can take.

This version of the story was not the first time the tale was told on the big screen. It was a remake of a 1950 film of the same name. In that version, the story also included 12 children and a father determined to keep order—but it leaned more heavily into the patriarch’s fascination with “motion study” and efficiency. 

‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ was based on a true story

What might be surprising for fans of this comedic, family-friendly tale is that it has its roots in reality. As The Cinemaholic reports, the original tale was told in a 1948 book by siblings Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and  Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. Their semi-autobiographical tale is about growing up with their parents, “famous for their pioneering Motion Study work, [who] seemingly made their home a living laboratory.”

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The book had a creative narrative flow: “The writers did not want the book to have a straightforward novel structure. Therefore, they envisioned the book as a series of stories.” Some sequencing and details were massaged for the organization’s sake, but the stories were primarily told from the siblings’ memories of their true home life. 

Featured heavily in the book was the Gilbreth family’s preoccupation with efficiency. The couple is historically known as pioneers in industrial engineering, and they frequently used their own home (and the many children in it) as subjects for studying their theories on how to get things done. Vox even goes so far as to call the family the origin of “life hack” culture.

‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ continues to captivate fans

In addition to the 1950 and 2003 adaptations of the Gilbreth kids’ original tale, Cheaper by the Dozen has become a bona fide Hollywood franchise. Martin and Hunt reunited in their version of the parents for Cheaper by the Dozen 2, which was released in 2005. 

In 2022, Disney released an updated version of the tale. This time, the parents are played by Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union as the pair navigate a large blended family with business demands. 

Each version has a creative license taken that moves much of the tale away from the source material. As Arka Mukhopadhyay writes for The Cinemaholic, “Taking into account all the aspects, the 1950 movie is the only one that follows the story from close quarters. In the case of the later installments, fiction outweighs reality.”