Given that Seth McFarlane’s first proper foray into filmmaking, Ted, has proven to be such a huge success (to the tune of $395 million worldwide), it’s perhaps not all that shocking that Universal is more than willing to say “I love you!” to more from the pot-happy, foul-mouthed Boston bear. Now the boss of NBCUniversal, Steve Burke has indicated that the company is itching to get one made as soon as possible.
Ted isn’t the only film likely to spawn a sequel. Speaking at a media, communications and technology conference in LA, Burke also mentioned that the studio expects to work on more Bourne films to follow Legacy.
Of course, Ted is in the hands of McFarlane, who admitted he hadn’t thought about a sequel yet but was open to the idea. It’ll naturally depend on him carving out time from his already busy schedule of overseeing / voicing three cartoon series, and his side trips into warbling. Plus, he’ll have to find a decent story in order to bring back Mark Wahlberg.
And while the latest Bourne outing hasn’t been quite the success that the studio hoped for ($182 million worldwide to date), the executives clearly think there’s enough interest to sustain more, most likely with Jeremy Renner in the lead (unless they find a way to bring Matt Damon back into the fold). The next question is who’ll be in charge of it. We’d expect Tony Gilroy to be involved in some fashion…