Producer Judd Apatow (left, with Universal Studios president and COO Ron Meyer at the Mann Village Theatre) said of having director/executive producer Paul Feig (right) on board, "We worked on 'Freaks and Geeks' together, and we haven't worked together in 10 years, so it was very special."
Alex J. Berliner/ABImagesTORONTO – That much talked about Bridesmaids 2 sequel is, well, percolating.
“Any interest in that is very, very unofficial,” Bridesmaids director Paul Feig told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.
“There’s nothing officially in the works right now, but we’re all open to it in a way. We just have to figure out a way to make it right,” he added.
Feig concedes there’s a sense of inevitability about a Judd Apatow-produced Bridesmaids 2: “The minute you make a movie that does very well, studios want to do another one.”
Getting Bridesmaids writing partners Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo to do a sequel script is problematic with Wiig about to do a passion project of her own and return to Saturday Night Live.
“But speaking for all of us, we would only want to do it if we knew it would be as good or better than the first one. None of us want to just do the thing to make a lot of money and ruin the memory of the first one,” Feig insisted.
Here it’s all about avoiding with a possible Bridesmaids 2 the pitfalls of bad comedy.
“We have to have a real story that doesn’t have any moments where people say, okay, that’s fake or that’s dumb, or anything that puts people off,” Feig said.
“That’s always where too many comedies fall apart, there’s always some moment where, to get the joke across, they go to big or too broad,” he added.
The problem with the raunch com genre, Feig insisted, is the audience laughs, but knows the events on the screen could never happen in real life.
“For me, it was really validating (with Bridesmaids) to do the style of comedy we like, where it’s part of a real story, but then we write it large, and have big things happen to people, so the audience reacts realistically to those things,” he said.
“To me, that’s key to the comedy I like to do. You can go as big as you want, as long as everything is based out of reality,” Feig insisted.
Speaking of unreality, the self-deprecating Bridesmaids director is certain the Just For Laughs organizers erred in having him follow Jay Roach and Todd Phillips and receive the comedy director of the year award in Montreal.
“I can of feel like they made a mistake possibly and think I’m someone else,” Feig said.
But the 2011 Just For Laughs honoree insists receiving industry approval after making the feature comedy hit of 2011 means a lot.
“It’s extremely validating. There’s no one harder on comedy than people in comedy. So, being given this award by them, it validates what I’ve been trying to do with my career,” Feig said.
