Posted in: Movies, Paramount Pictures | Tagged: Barbarian, ben stiller, Dodgeball, justin long, vince vaughn

Dodgeball 2: Justin Long Reveals Vaughn's Idea, Stiller's Hesitancy

It's been 18 years since the 2004 screwball sports comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story about a group of misfits trying to save their gym from a conglomerate. The Rawson Marshall Thurber comedy starred Vince Vaughn as Peter La Fleur, the owner of Average Joes, who leads his group to a national dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas to raise money to save his gym. In his way is Ben Stiller's White Goodman, owner of Globo Gym, who signs up his Purple Cobras in the same tournament to stop his rival. While promoting his film Barbarian, Justin Long, who played Justin in the Thurber comedy, spoke to Comicbook.com about the possibility of a sequel.

"I do a podcast with my brother called 'Life is Short, ' and when we had Ben Stiller on, and I asked Ben about this because I had just worked with Vince Vaughn again," Long said. "Vince wrote this movie; it's like a parody of Christmas movies that I have coming out this December called Christmas with the Campbells; so I had just been around Vince a lot, and Vince had been telling me that he has this great idea for a sequel. I don't know if he had yet pitched it to Ben, but I kind of set up the pitch; I felt like I should facilitate the pitch."

Stiller had doubts about doing a Dodgeball sequel, perhaps stemming from the panned Zoolander 2, the 2016 sequel to the hit 2001 film for Paramount. "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 shitt 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, but I hope he comes around on it. 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."

Long mentioned the 2017 Dodgeball event for Omaze that included Stiller, Vaughn, Missi Pyle, Jamal Duff, himself, and Christine Taylor, who played Average Joes' and accountant Kate Veach. "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 how happy it made him playing White Goodman again and how much fun that character was. I do know that Vince has a great idea for it, and it's just a matter of getting Ben on board." The 2004 film also starred Hank Azaria, Rip Torn, Stephen Root, Alan Tudyk, Joel David Moore, Gary Cole, and Jason Bateman.

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