In a recent interview with David Duchovny on his upcoming podcast, Fail Better, Ben Stiller opened up about the impact of his 2016 box office flop, Zoolander 2. Stiller wrote, produced, directed and starred in the sequel, which did not fare well with critics and made only $29 million from a reported $50 million budget. The film also included cameos from Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, as well as appearances from Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell, who starred in the original film.
Stiller expressed that the failure of the film affected him “for a long time”. He said, “I thought everybody wanted this…And then it’s like, ‘Wow, I must have really fucked this up. Everybody didn’t go to it. And it’s gotten these horrible reviews.’ It really freaked me out.”
The actor also spoke about how the flop made him question his comedic instincts. “I’m losing what I think what’s funny, the questioning yourself…on Zoolander 2, it was definitely blindsiding to me. And it definitely affected me for a long time.”
However, Stiller found a silver lining in the failure of the film. “The wonderful thing that came out of that for me was just having space where, if that had been a hit, and they said ‘Make Zoolander 3 right now,’ or offered some other movie, I would have just probably jumped in and done that,” he said. “But I had this space to kind of sit with myself and have to deal with it and other projects that I had been working on – not comedies, some of them – I have the time to actually just work on and develop.”
Since Zoolander 2, Stiller has directed critically acclaimed projects such as 2018’s Escape at Dannemora and the Emmy-nominated series, Severance, which he also produced. The full interview will be available on May 7
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