Will Ferrell reveals why he turned down Elf sequel despite being offered 'crazy amount of money'
Topics: Will Ferrell, Christmas, Film and TV
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: Happy Sad Confused/YouTube
Topics: Will Ferrell, Christmas, Film and TV
Will Ferrell is responsible for one of the most beloved Christmas movies and has finally explained why it never got a sequel.
Looking at Hollywood now, just about everything gets a sequel and it doesn’t always work out for the best.
Sometimes a film’s story just comes to an end and that should be the end of it, especially for certain flicks like Christmas movies.
But when Ferrell became the iconic Buddy for his 2003 film Elf, it is understandable why studio executives wanted to churn out a sequel hoping it would be just as successful - but the Anchorman star has refused every single time.
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Recently, in an interview with Josh Horowitz and Reese Witherspoon for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Ferrell revealed why he wasn’t exactly behind the idea of a sequel.
He argued that it would likely prove difficult because Elf essentially wraps everything up nice and tight in a cute Christmas bow and it serves its purpose as once time thing.
But executives would have likely counter-argued with...’but what about more money?'.
Speaking to Horowitz, Ferrell said: “There was a lot of movement after the film initially came out.
“Of which I maintained that it was going to be really hard because it is a classic fish out of water story, but prove me wrong.
“An attempt was made at a script which tried its best but I was just like ‘I don’t know.’
“I was offered a crazy amount of money but naa, I was just like I have to be able to sit in a setting like this and talk about the movie in a way that I feel good about.
“I was talking to my manager going ‘look if I was to promote that movie I would literally be saying I did it for the money, straight up, do you want that messaging out there?’ And they tried a little bit later down the road.”
Ferrell did note that an idea was floated could have been a sequel could be focused on Buddy being a little down on his luck, but the actor wasn’t really on board for that either, saying ‘no one wants to see that’.
This choice was probably for the best, to be honest - though if you want an idea of how that could look, then Ferrell's recent outing at a hockey game could be a good indicator of what could have been.
However, Ferrell and Elf's director, Jon Favreau also 'didn't get along very well', according to James Caan, who portrayed Buddy's biological father, Walter Hobbs.
This, according to Caan, also influenced the actor's decision to not to do a sequel, as he told 92.3 Sports Radio in 2022: "Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director… it was one of those things."