Path: ...!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-2.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 05 May 2024 15:07:31 +0000
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.past-films,alt.movies
Subject: Re: Ben Stiller Says He Was "Blindsided" By "Zoolander 2" Flopping:
 'Thought Everybody Wanted This'
From: Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net>
X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.12N (x86 32bit)
Date: Sun, 05 May 2024 11:05:46 -0400
References: <KPadnZ1HsbALvK37nZ2dnZfqn_SdnZ2d@giganews.com> <v0r5ia$2i8p6$1@dont-email.me>
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID: <U0r5ia$2i8p6$1@dont-email.me>
Lines: 67
X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com
X-Trace: sv3-kKxB/BRge3r/FMDnBzdjhuHgx3acqWl2AqhFtNJZBSeCK0fT+vsbKnyLVuWR8Ln62muo2bsptaY3Xis!fD+Vbmlqh8zRBlAqTmXF2IvOTGEoX+MbjKJj6HAeTM3U124t8bMwxw==
X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com
X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.40
Bytes: 4513

In article <v0r5ia$2i8p6$1@dont-email.me>, gmkeros@gmail.com wrote:
>On 4/26/2024 3:05 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

>> 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.
>
>The main problem was that this movie should have been made 8 years 
>prior. Zoolander was a genuinely good movie at the right time. It would 
>have been great if they could have caught that lightning in a bottle.
>But they didn't. And it's the old problem of making sequels when the 
>hype already has passed. If you lose the connection to the zeitgeist 
>it's hard to make a good movie, unless you do something that makes up 
>for it.
>Or in other words: it isn't so bad if you crank out sequels even if they 
>are bad, as long as they catch the audience. That's why The Fast and the 
>Furious still is going, that's why Police Academy managed to make it to 
>6 sequels.

I honestly did not know there was a sequel.

--
Let's go Brandon!