Ben Stiller was baffled by Zoolander 2 flopping

The Zoolander sequel failed to land with the same impact as the original movie, a fact that really shocked and confused Ben Stiller when the film flopped and struggled at the cinema during its theatrical run.

Speaking about this situation, Stiller recently appeared on the David Duchovny's Fail Better podcast (thanks, People), where he voiced his confusion with the film's performance at the box office, where it generated around $57 million in total, despite a budget of approximately $50 million.

"I thought everybody wanted this," Stiller stated. "And then it's like, 'Wow, I must have really f---ed this up. Everybody didn't go to it. And it's gotten these horrible reviews. 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."

Stiller did mention that the failure of Zoolander 2 was the necessary catalyst for him to take a bigger leap into directing, something he has since committed to and seen better success with, as Apple TV+'s Severance seems to prove.