Actor and filmmaker Ben Stiller admits that his 2016 sequel Zoolander 2 - which was a box office and critical flop - was a bad experience for him.

Zoolander 2’s failure at the box office was a bad experience for Ben Stiller, who co-wrote and directed the 2016 flop. After the cult success of the first Zoolander film in 2001, Stiller seemed to have created a comedic character with staying power in ultra-vain and clueless super model, Derek Zoolander. The film was Stiller’s follow up to his 1999 directorial debut, The Cable Guy, which starred Jim Carrey at the height of his fame.

But unlike The Cable Guy, there was no mistaking Zoolander’s spoofy, light-hearted tone. Amalgamating key aspects of late 1990s and early 2000s pop culture, the film followed Zoolander (played by Stiller) as he hits an unexpected slump in his professional modeling career. Pushed aside by modeling’s next big star - Hansel (Owen Wilson) - Zoolander can only watch in horror as his fame and friendships dissolve before his eyes. But when fashion guru Mugatu (Will Ferrell) begins to take a vested interest in Zoolander, a ridiculous plot to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia is revealed, with Zoolander at the forefront. The film’s numerous easy laughs provided a certain degree of charm, and when rumors emerged in 2010 of a sequel, fans were more than a little excited by the prospect.

Unfortunately, when Zoolander 2 did at last arrive in 2016, it just couldn’t manage to recapture the fun and appeal of the first film. This certainly wasn’t down to a lack of star power, either. Zoolander 2 had even more celebrity cameos than the first film, yet Stiller still couldn’t deliver the sort of sequel that so many had been hoping for. And while this was certainly disappointing for fans, as THR reports, Stiller himself admits that Zoolander 2's failure to succeed either critically or commercially was "not a great experience" for him.

By current box office standards, the first Zoolander film was hardly a blockbuster. However, it did perform reasonably well, and the fanbase it created was dedicated enough to keep the film relevant for years to come. But after bringing in just $56 million on a $50 million budget, Zoolander 2 was an undeniable box office bomb. Arguably even worse than this financial trouncing was that the film failed to connect with audiences in the way that its predecessor had. It seemed that in the 15 years between the first and second film, a comedic tale of a vain supermodel just wasn’t the laugh that it once was.

Stiller’s career as a filmmaker has never been especially successful – at least not in comparison to his career as an actor. To some degree, his films seem to have a slow burn quality to them, with the original Zoolander and The Cable Guy having found their audience long after they’d left theaters. Yet despite this, the idea to make a Zoolander 2 was a risky one straight from the start. Stiller was lucky to have found the level of success that he did end up finding with the first Zoolander, and coming back for another outing 15 years later was a gamble that never seemed likely to succeed.

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Source: THR