Vince Vaughn Is Finally Making Dodgeball 2
Almost 20 years after its original release, Vince Vaughn is making a sequel to Dodgeball.
It’s 2023, and Vince Vaughn has finally decided it might be time to make a sequel to Dodgeball, nearly 20 years after the release of the original in 2004. Deadline reported that Vaughn is set to star in the sequel that will be penned by Jordan VanDina at 20th Century Studios. At this time, it’s unknown if original writer and director Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’re the Millers) will be involved in any capacity or if any other stars like Ben Stiller will return.
Vince Vaughn starred in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story as Pete LaFleur, the owner of Average Joe’s Gym, who enters a Vegas dodgeball tournament to save his gym from being acquired by the Globo Gym chain, run by Ben Stiller’s White Goodman. Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld produced the first film, and it remains to be seen if they’ll return to produce the sequel. Aside from Vaughn and Stiller, the first film starred Christine Taylor, Justin Long, Stephen Root, Alan Tudyk, Joel David Moore, Chris Williams, Missi Pyle, Gary Cole, Jason Bateman, William Shatner, and the late Rip Torn.
According to the Deadline report, the script is based on an idea from Vince Vaughn and will continue the story of Pete LaFleur. In other words, details on the plot of Dodgeball 2 are pretty scant for now. With the first film pulling in $168 million worldwide against a $20 million budget, it’s actually surprising that this sequel wasn’t put together sooner.
When Vince Vaughn’s Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story came out in 2004, it was a banner year for raunchy and goofball comedies. Other movies released that year included Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Napolean Dynamite, Shaun of the Dead, Mean Girls, and many more. There’s no way to know if the demand for a new Dodgeball film will be as strong in the 2020s, but it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to catch that same lightning in a bottle again.
With that being said, Vince Vaughn’s Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story still managed to stand out in a crowded year of quality comedies. The aforementioned Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy brought in around $90 million at the box office, meaning Dodgeball nearly doubled its take. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues would come out nearly a decade later and pull in over $173 million, so clearly the sequel decision was worth it.
Still, releasing a sequel just under a decade later is a lot different than releasing a sequel nearly two decades later. It’s probably not a good idea to count Vince Vaughn’s Dodgeball 2 out, since the original was hilarious and well-loved. But it will definitely be interesting to see how it ends up doing.
While we wait for Vince Vaughn to bring us Dodgeball 2, he has quite a few other projects lined up. He’ll be starring alongside Ryan Reynolds, Jason Momoa, and Aubrey Plaza in the upcoming comedy from Legendary titled Animal Friends. He also will be lending his voice to John Krasinski’s upcoming IF project along with Matt Damon, Jon Stewart, Emily Blunt, Maya Rudolph, Awkwafina, Ryan Reynolds, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Cailey Fleming, Louis Gossett Jr, Fiona Shaw, Alan S. Kim, Steve Carell, and Bobby Moynihan.
