Ben Stiller says ‘Zoolander 2’ flop affected him “for a long time”

Ben Stiller has said that the Zoolander 2 flop affected him “for a long time” in a new interview.

Stiller, who wrote, produced, directed and starred in the 2016 sequel reflected on the experience with X-Files actor David Duchovny’s upcoming podcast, Fail Better.

Stiller said: “I thought everybody wanted this…And then it’s like, ‘Wow, I must have really fucked this up. Everybody didn’t go to it. And it’s gotten these horrible reviews.”

The film made $29million (£23million) from a reported $50million (£40million) budget and included cameos from the likes of Justin Bieber and Katy Perry. It also featured actors who appeared in the first film including Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell.

Stiller continued: “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, 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.

“…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 continued.

“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.”

When asked why he didn’t want to by ” Duchovny, he continued: “It was just hurt. 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…since I was a kid, and not necessarily comedies. And so, over the course of the next like, nine or 10 months, I was able to develop these limited series.”

Stiller went on to direct 2018’s Escape at Dannemora for which he earned a DGA Award for Outstanding Directing. Stiller was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

In 2022, Stiller produced and directed the Emmy-nominated series Severance.

The full interview with Duchovny arrives on May 7.