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Subject: Ben Stiller Says He Was "Blindsided" By "Zoolander 2" Flopping: 'Thought Everybody Wanted This'
From: Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net>
Keywords: https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-stiller-says-he-was-blindsided-by-zoolander-2-flopping-thought-everybody-wanted-this
Summary: https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-stiller-says-he-was-blindsided-by-zoolander-2-flopping-thought-everybody-wanted-this
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Actor Ben Stiller expressed his shock at how badly “Zoolander 2” 
performed at the box office following its release in 2016 despite the 
original film’s success in 2001.

The 58-year-old star discussed his thoughts during a recent episode of 
David Duchovny’s “Fail Better” podcast. “I thought everybody wanted 
this,” Stiller said of making the sequel. “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.”

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

Stiller directed, wrote, produced, and starred in the sequel, just as 
he did with the original. The first “Zoolander” was a critical and 
commercial success. The movie satirized the fashion industry as it 
documented the life of a male model, Derek Zoolander (Stiller), and his 
rival Hansel (Owen Wilson). It earned $60.8 million against a 
production budget of $28 million.

The sequel fared much worse. Set ten years after the original, 
“Zoolander 2” included many of the original cast members, including 
Stiller and Wilson, while Will Ferrell, Penelope Cruz, Kristen Wiig, 
Naomi Campbell, and Justin Bieber were also co-stars. Benedict 
Cumberbatch played a transgender model named AII. 

As The Guardian noted, “Zoolander 2” barely broke even on its $50 
million production budget and received terrible reviews. 

Stiller told Duchovny that the failure became a learning experience for 
him. 

“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,” the “Meet the Parents” star 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. 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,” Stiller continued.

--
Let's go Brandon!