Diane Keatons Tod spornt die Fortsetzung von „The Family Stone“ an

Christmas is coming early for those who love spending the holidays with the Stone family.

Thomas Bezucha, the writer-director behind the 2005 perennial yuletide favorite “The Family Stone,” is working on a sequel to the movie, he tells CNN.

Bezucha shared the news during an interview about working with the late Diane Keaton, who played matriarch Sybil Stone in the original movie.

The filmmaker said that he had been thinking about and working on the script for a followup to “The Family Stone” – which follows Sybil’s family at Christmas as they grapple with the news that she is terminally ill – when he learned of Keaton’s untimely death last month at the age of 79.

“I’ve been haunted by the loss of Sybil for months now while I worked on it, and so this was a blow on a tender bruise already,” Bezucha said. “Mentally, I’ve been spending time in that house where I’ve been missing her for a while already.”

Bezucha said the news of Keaton’s passing made it all the more important for him to get it right and “do a good job by the rest of the cast.” Now, he wants to “honor her even more,” he said.