While Ben Stiller has seemingly shifted into filmmaking full-time, he directed most of the hit sci-fi psychological thriller series, “Severance,” for Apple TV+; he’s obviously known for a celebrated comedy career. Directing and starring in hit comedies like “Zoolander,” “Tropic Thunder” and “The Cable Guy” (though only a tiny part in the latter), the comedian has reflected on the failure of “Zoolander 2” in a new interview with Fail Better podcast.
“Zoolander” itself was never a huge hit, coming out only two weeks after 9/11 in 2001 and only grossed $45 million domestically and $60 million worldwide. But it grew in stature and popularity over the years, leading everyone to believe that a sequel would be a big hit, including Paramount Pictures.
READ MORE: ‘Nutcrackers’: Ben Stiller To Star In David Gordon Green’s Upcoming Non-Horror Film
However, “Zoolander 2” ended up as a box office disaster, only earning a poultry $56.7 million on a reported budget of $50 million. Stiller hasn’t directed a feature film since that 2016 release and, in the Fail Better interview, said he received a rather rude reality check after the “bad reviews” and the film’s meager domestic opening of $13.8 million.
“I thought everybody wanted this,” Stiller said of the 2016 sequel to the 2001 comedy that brought back Will Farrell and added comedic heavy-weight Kristen Wigg, coming off the success of “Bridesmaids,” in a new role. “And then it’s like, ‘Wow, I must have really f—ed this up. Everybody didn’t go to it. And it’s gotten these horrible reviews.”
Stiller continued and explained that the disappointing outcome and confusion led to him questioning his own sense of humor in the process.
“It really freaked me out because I was like, ‘I didn’t know [it] was that bad?” What scared me the most on that one was I was losing what I think was funny, the questioning yourself … on ‘Zoolander 2,’ it was definitely blindsiding to me. And it definitely affected me for a long time,” he admitted.
However, Stiller found a silver lining in its failure, and this period of reflection led to his renaissance with “Severence” (which just finished shooting season two, FYI, though apparently after a tumultuous year of production).
“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 explained. “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…Even if somebody said, ‘Well, why don’t you go do another comedy or do this?’ I probably could have figured out something to do. But I just didn’t want to.”
Before “Zoolander 2,” Stiller helmed a remake of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” which did substantial numbers at the box office, earning $188.1 million after “Tropic Thunder” earned a solid $195.7 million five years earlier. Given those hits and how “Zoolander” had grown immensely in popularity over the years, it’s somewhat understandable that the “Zoolander 2” failure would blindside Stiller. Belated comedies were in vogue at the time, too, as just three years earlier, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” grossed a very healthy $171.4 million worldwide.
In the interim, Stiller has at least one film project percolating with Cate Blanchett attached to star, and of course, “Severance” season two on the way. However, the latter wrapped production over a year and a half after it began amid reports of all kinds of behind-the-scenes problems. Let’s hope for Stiller’s sake that the series has figured out its problem and can successfully return for another acclaimed second season.