Ben Stiller wants to make another “Dodgeball” movie. Hollywood, according to people who take his meetings, would rather he did not.
The comedy star has spent months trying to revive the franchise that once made him and Vince Vaughn the kings of stupidly perfect sports parody. Vaughn, sources say, was open to talking. The studios were not. Behind closed doors, the reason keeps coming up the same way. Stiller, they say, is “too woke.”
That is a brutal label for a guy whose biggest hits were built on awkward men, ridiculous wigs, and physical comedy that did not require a political science degree. But in today’s Hollywood, labels stick faster than scripts get greenlit, and Stiller has spent years as one of the more outspoken voices in the industry.
Friends say he was blindsided by how cold the rooms have gotten. He still has the name recognition. He still has the comic timing. What he does not have, apparently, is a studio willing to put tens of millions behind a sequel attached to his politics.
“Vince was interested,” said Alex Bruno, a producer who has worked with both men. “That part is true. The problem was never Vaughn. The problem was the people writing the checks. They kept saying the same thing in different words. Too woke. Too risky. Not worth the headache.”
The “Dodgeball” roadblock is only half the story. Stiller has also been shopping another “Focker” film, the kind of family comedy that once printed money with Robert De Niro in the grumpy-dad role. That pitch, insiders say, died even faster. De Niro remains a legend, but executives describe him as a grumpy old codger who somehow comes off wokier than Stiller himself, which is saying something in a town that already filed Stiller under “handle with care.”
Nobody wants to say it on the record, of course. Studios prefer softer language like “franchise fatigue” and “crowded marketplace.” Off the record, the conversation is blunter. Political baggage has a cost, and Stiller’s is considered expensive.
The contrast with Adam Sandler has not gone unnoticed. Sandler still packs theaters, still fills Netflix queues, and still somehow floats above the culture war by keeping his politics mostly to himself. Stiller, meanwhile, is stuck going to Sandler’s premieres, smiling for the cameras, and wondering when his own next big comedy will get a date.
“Sandler figured out the one rule Hollywood still respects,” Bruno added. “Make people laugh and do not make them pick a side first. Ben never got that memo, or he ignored it. Either way, the sequels are sitting on a shelf.”
Stiller’s team insists the projects are still alive and that timing, not politics, is the issue. Maybe so. Timing has a funny way of stretching when the money people get nervous.
For now, the man who once owned summer comedy cannot get a “Dodgeball” sequel made, cannot restart the Focker machine, and cannot stop hearing the same two words in every pitch meeting. Too woke. His publicist declined to comment.