'Zoolander 2' Failure Blindsided Ben Stiller: 'It Affected Me For A Long Time'

By Emily Richardson | Film | April 23, 2024 |

By Emily Richardson | Film | April 23, 2024 |

Waaaay back in 2016, Ben Stiller directed, co-wrote, produced, and starred in Zoolander 2, the sequel to Zoolander (2001). It … did not go well. The movie only made $29 million domestically (against a $50 million budget), and currently stands at 22% on Rotten Tomatoes. At the time, Dustin called it “the Max Landis of sequels”.

This week, Ben went on his Zoolander co-star David Duchovny’s new podcast, Fail Better, and talked about the sequel. He says the flop really threw him for a loop, via PEOPLE:

“I thought everybody wanted this,” Stiller said. “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.”

The reception was so bad it made Ben question his entire sense of humor:

“It really freaked me out because I was like, ‘I didn’t know was that bad?’ ” Stiller continued. “What scared me the most on that one was l’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.”

Now, he can look on the bright side. Ben says “the wonderful thing” that came out of the bomb is having “space” to sit with himself and focus on other non-comedy projects. He thinks that if the movie had been a hit, and he was offered Zoolander 3 or another comedy, he would’ve said yes without thinking. But after his failure, he “just didn’t want to.” David asks Ben why: “Was it anger?” Ben responds:

“It was just hurt,” Stiller replied. “Finding yourself in terms of what creatively you want to be and do, I, I always loved directing. I always loved making movies. I always, in my mind, loved the idea of just directing movies that since I was a kid, and not necessarily comedies. And so, over the course of like the next like, nine or 10 months, I was able to develop these limited series.”

He’s talking about about directing the miniseries Escape at Dannemora (2018) and Severance, which finally wrapped filming its second season. According to gossip, it was delayed due to a “toxic” work environment: the series creator and one of the writers hated each other. Ben has denied this.

Ya know, I thought people were shitting on Zoolander 2 just to shit on it, but, when I finally streamed it a couple years later, I discovered it really did suck. The only part I remember is Kristen Wiig’s plastic surgery face:

Huh. That face isn’t as shocking as it was back in 2016. In fact, compared to a present-day Kardashian/one of the Real Housewives, it’s downright understated.