Vince Vaughn Has a Plan for ‘Dodgeball 2’
Actor and comedian Justin Long is enjoying a bit of a “Longaissance” at the moment with the recent success of A24’s Barbarian, which starred Long in the directorial debut of Zach Cregger of “Whitest Kids U’ Know” fame. The film is a surprise horror hit, and Long’s good fortunes seem set to continue — he recently hinted that he may be returning to one of his biggest roles with the revelation that Vince Vaughn has been working on an idea for a sequel to the beloved 2004 comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
In an interview with ComicBook.com, Long let it slip that Vaughn had approached him with an idea for Dodgeball 2, and that the two of them were hoping to convince Ben Stiller to sign on for another installment. Though Long warned of Stiller’s reticence to do a sequel almost two decades after the fact, Long believes that Stiller has not yet instructed Vaughn to cram it up his cramhole.
“Vince had been telling me that he has this great idea for a sequel,” Long told ComicBook.com when asked about the possibility of a Dodgeball 2. Long recently had Stiller on an episode of his podcast, Life is Short, during which Long broached the idea of a sequel to the comedy megastar. Said Long, “Of course I would love to do it and I hope that it ends up happening, but I think Ben is a little, what he told me on that podcast was that he's a little trepidatious about doing a sequel to something so beloved, something that people enjoy so much that. It’s very risky: You don’t wanna s--t on the original; you want something just as good. So I think he’s a little wary of that, of trying to recreate something that was very specific to that time.”
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Stiller has good reason to be wary — his last attempt at trying to revisit past glory with a decade-and-a-half-too-late sequel was Zoolander 2 back in 2016, which drew a negative response from critics and had a meager showing at the box office. The bad taste from a flop is hard to shake in Hollywood, so Stiller will need considerable convincing if he’s going to return to his role as White Goodman, the head of Globo Gym and sworn enemy of Vaughn and his ragtag team of misfits at Average Joe’s Gym.
But Long is confident in the power of Vaughn’s charm, explaining, “Vince is a very convincing person, so I’m just hoping Vince can convince him with his idea. It’s a funny idea. I don’t wanna say what it is. … I know Ben loves Dodgeball and loves that character. I remember how much fun he had playing it. He was always laughing. When we got together years later to do a little mini-reunion for this charity and Ben put on the mustache again, I remember him talking about how happy it made him playing White Goodman again and how much fun that character was."
Hopefully, Long and Vaughn will be able to convince both Stiller and Dodgeball’s producers at 20th Century Fox that a sequel 18 years later is financially feasible. Any news of more Dodgeball is welcome, but Long’s announcement might be a little premature, seeing as they have yet to secure the film’s biggest star.
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for them.
