Robin Williams considered a 'Mrs. Doubtfire' sequel before his death, but had one main request, says director

• Chris Columbus said he talked about a possible "Mrs. Doubtfire" sequel with Robin Williams before his death.
• Williams didn't want to be in the Doubtfire suit as much if a sequel was made, Columbus said.

Though "Mrs. Doubtfire" had huge box office when it opened in 1993 (only "Jurassic Park" earned more that year), there wasn't an immediate sequel interest from its director and star Robin Williams.

"Back then, there was an attitude that sequels were looked down upon by the artists," director Chris Columbus told Business Insider while looking back on the movie's 30th anniversary. "So Robin was against doing a sequel immediately after."

Columbus said it wasn't until 2014, the year Williams died, that the two ever talked about a sequel. The two met at Williams' house, and it was the last time Columbus saw his friend alive.

"I went to his house and we sat down and talked about it and the script was really strong," Columbus recalled.

But the "Home Alone" director did remember Williams had one major note for him: "Do I have to be in the suit as much this time?"

Columbus understood his star's concern. After all, the Oscar-winner was in his early 60s at the time of the discussion around a potential sequel. Also, Columbus had seen first-hand how demanding it was for Williams to play the character twenty-plus years ago — the transformation took as long as five hours in the make-up trailer to complete.

"As we went further into production, it got a little quicker. Regardless, we never could shoot two consecutive days of Robin as Mrs. Doubtfire because he was waking up at 3 in the morning to get into makeup, so by 8 a.m. we could shoot," he told BI. "It was a punishing day for him, so always the next day, we would shoot him as Daniel."

Some 2 million feet of film was used to capture Williams' performance in the first movie.

"For Robin, I think it was like running a marathon every day he was in the Doubtfire costume," Columbus said.

However, with Williams' death, any sequel chatter ended. And if it were up to Columbus, it would be forever.

"There will never be a sequel to 'Mrs. Doubtfire,'" Columbus said.

But Disney owns the movie, not Columbus or the Williams family. So it's technically in the hands of the studio.

"The studio can do whatever they want with it," Columbus said. "Should they? God no. I will certainly be very vocal about it if they decide to do it."