Ben Stiller admits he was taken by surprise and felt bad about his biggest failure: ‘I thought everyone wanted the film’ | Films

The last parade was not at all successful for Derek Zoolander, unfortunately. Anyone who lived through the 2000s will certainly remember one of the most iconic action comedies of that decade, the now modern classic ‘Zoolander’. Even if you haven’t watched the feature film, you’ve come across a print or a GIF of one of the many hilarious scenes written, directed and produced by Ben Stiller. Despite the undeniable success of the first film, its sequel, released 15 years after the original, did not please the public at all, becoming one of the biggest failures of 2016. To the complete surprise of its creator, as he now reveals.

In 2001, Stiller and his persistent partner Owen Wilson delivered what the public didn’t know they needed, but – once they tasted it – they never wanted to put it down. The story of ‘Zoolander’ is beyond crazy: a supermodel in crisis – having lost the position of darling of the catwalks and photographers to his rival – is lured into a trap set by Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell), to transform him. him into an assassin trained to execute the president of Malaysia in order to make the exploitation of child labor in the country easier.

At first, it even seems too bizarre; and is. What makes ‘Zoolander’ so special are, in fact, the constant absurdities, which turn this into one of the most hilarious films of recent years, and a true icon that rescues supermodel culture (which at the time was supported by names like Gisele Bündchen, Natasha Poly and Maria Carla Boscono) into the universe of espionage.

Not by chance, the newspaper ‘Los Angeles Times’ gave the film a 9 and called it “an exuberant and treacherously funny satire”. Today, it has 65% critical approval on the review aggregator ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ and 80% public approval. At the time of its release, ‘Zoolander’ made an incredible $60.8 million worldwide and had a budget of $28 million. It was a hit without measure.

Fifteen years after his hit, Ben Stiller saw a wave of memes growing on social media that used random scenes from the film. The main one being the unforgettable paparazzi moment on the red carpet, in which Derek (Stiller) is insulted by the popularity of Hansel (Wilson).

With the success that didn’t go away, Ben Stiller thought a sequel would be an obvious hit. In 2016, ‘Zoolander 2’ hit theaters, with the duo once again reprising their iconic roles, as well as featuring Penélope Cruz, Benedict Cumberbatch and Alexander Skarsgård, as well as short appearances by several pop stars, such as Ariana Grande, pilot Lewis Hamilton and Canadian Justin Bieber.

With an inflated budget of 50 million dollars, the film followed the duo on a new adventure, which involves a conspiracy in Rome, which takes them away from the life of supermodels once again. The wave of remakes, reboots and sequels to classics in Hollywood was what perhaps made Ben Stiller think that ‘Zoolander 2’ might even surpass the success of the first film.

It didn’t happen: grossing didn’t exceed 30 million dollars in the United States, and overall, it closed with a box office of almost 57 million. Slightly above the budget, but nothing that meant success – quite the opposite. Under these conditions, the result was a real loss, as there are still many other costs involved in a theatrical release of this size.

The result was even too shocking for the actor and director. In a recent appearance on the ‘Fail Better’ podcast, Ben Stiller revealed that the flop of his sequence really affected him. “I thought everyone wanted this movie,” he admitted. “And then suddenly it was like, ‘Wow, I really screwed up.’ No one went to watch [ao filme]. And it still got some horrible reviews.”

The star even had his negative feelings amplified when he realized that his much-loved project was going downhill with each new review. “It really scared me, because I was like, ‘Was it that bad?’ surprising to me. And it definitely affected me for a long time.”

That’s no exaggeration from Ben Stiller. Really, the result of ‘Zoolander 2’ was pitiful. ‘The New York Times’ gave the film the equivalent of a 3 out of 10, saying that “the production has enough plots for several films. They are so stuffed that they end up more or less canceling each other out.” And the American outlet was not the only one to banish Stiller’s film. The website TheWrap gave a rating equivalent to 2.5 out of 10 and The Washington Post had no mercy and gave the film a rating of 0, claiming it was “written lazily by Ben Stiller and three other friends”.

It was live performance, in its rawest form.

In the end, what remained in the public’s memory is that there is only one ‘Zoolander’ worthy of note, the one from 2001. Apparently, the only one who remembers the sequence is its creator, like a bad memory, in fact.

Check out the trailer for ‘Zoolander 2’ below.

*Edited by Luís Alberto Nogueira