Vince Vaughn has enjoyed a number of enormous hits over the course of his career, starting off in Rudy and Swingers before breaking bigger for the likes of Steven Spielberg (The Lost World: Jurassic Park) and Gus Van Sant (Psycho). His resume is peppered with comedic classic, but the one thing Vaughn has steered clear of is an easy sequel. Do you know how much money Old School 2 or Dodgeball 2 could have made if studios hurried into production and capitalized on the enormous buzz generated by those hits?
Instead of diving back into a hit premise, Vince Vaughn has made a habit of exploring new ground. He’d follow The Break-Up with an internal drama like Into the Wild, or play against type in heavy dramas such as Hacksaw Ridge, Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete. His latest left-turn is Freaky, a horror comedy that uses the traditional body-swap formula on a serial killer (Vaughn) and a high-school girl (Kathryn Newton).
Joining the ReelBlend podcast this week, Vaughn explained why he has avoided sequels over the course of his career, saying:
I never went and made a sequel to a lot of these films at the time because it felt like we were just chasing a success. … It just didn't feel like the story idea for the second one was as good as the moment of the excitement that the movie did well. It felt like I’d just go make another movie that was interesting, versus go and tread on it. But I kind of think the timing for Crashers and what it discusses is contemporary and fun. And this could be a fun way in. But yeah, I always just felt like, if there was a really good story and a continuation -- like, you know, Dodgeball. I love that character and those guys, but you'd want to make sure that you're investigating something new. You're not just treading on something that was already kind of discussed.
What a refreshing response, and one that’s genuinely authentic when you look over Vince Vaughn’s catalogue and realize he really didn’t ever chase the easy success that would come with a sequel. The industry LOVES wringing dollars out of the familiar. And not all sequels are bad. Just this year, Bad Boys for Life and Bill & Ted Face the Music showed that you can revive a dormant franchise so long as you treat the source material with reverence – which sounds like what David Dobkin, Vaughn and Owen Wilson may try to do with Wedding Crashers 2.
Listen the full interview with Vince Vaughn on this week’s episode of ReelBlend:
For now, though, Vaughn fans can anticipate him flexing yet another creative muscle in Christopher Landon’s Freaky, a Blumhouse horror comedy that slashes its way into select theaters on Friday, November 13. How very appropriate.
