Jon Favreau says he's not interested in making an Elf sequel: 'It's very complete'
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Jon Favreau is no cotton-headed ninnymuggins. The director knows when a story should come to an end and has thus determined that his beloved holiday movie Elf does not need a sequel.
"I think there's always room for new Christmas movies," Favreau told Variety in an interview published Monday. "That particular film, I don't know what story would be told after that. It's very complete."
The 2003 comedy, which turns 20 this year, follows the adventures of Buddy (Will Ferrell), a human raised by Santa's elves who embarks on a journey to New York City to meet his biological father (James Caan) after he learns about his true origins.
Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Asner, and Bob Newhart also appear in supporting roles. Favreau said he very much set out to make a perennial hit two decades ago. "That was our goal, that we could be part of that pantheon of classics that families watch together every year," Favreau said.
Everett Collection Will Ferrell and Jon Favreau on the set of 'Elf'
"We really embraced making it feel like it could air right alongside Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or It's a Wonderful Life," he continued. "It felt old even when it first came out, because of the stop-motion animation, the themes, the music, John Debney's beautiful score, and, of course, Will Ferrell at the center of it, bringing so much humanity and humor to it."
In 2016, Favreau said that talks of a potential sequel often came up in meetings with studio bigwigs. "There is part of me that wonders if there's anything to be done to follow up Elf," he told Yahoo, adding, "But I think a straight sequel is probably not the right move."
Caan, meanwhile, has hinted that a sequel never materialized because Ferrell and Favreau "didn't get along very well."
"We were going to do it, and I thought, 'Oh my God, I finally have a franchise movie. I can make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do,'" he said during a radio interview in 2020. "The director and Will didn't get along very well. Will wanted to do it, and he didn't want the director."
Ferrell, for his part, suggested that the sequel's failure to launch had to do with its premise. The actor recently shared that he turned down $29 million to reprise his role because the script was "not good."
"I would have had to promote the movie from an honest place, which would've been, like, 'Oh no, it's not good. I just couldn't turn down that much money," the actor told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021. "And I thought, 'Can I actually say those words? I don't think I can, so I guess I can't do the movie.'"
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