Despite the cheery flick grossing over $291 million at the box office at the time and even spawning a 2010 Broadway musical, a sequel never came around to fruition.Ferrell, 54, has been candid in the past about saying no to a $38 million ($US29 million) offer to star in a second film. Now, the comedian is opening up as to why he turned down the multimillion dollar pay cheque.“I would have had to promote the movie from an honest place, which would have been, like, ‘Oh no, it’s not good. I just couldn’t turn down that much money,’” the Anchorman star revealed in a recent profile for the Hollywood Reporter. “And I thought, ‘Can I actually say those words? I don’t think I can, so I guess I can’t do the movie.’”The Saturday Night Live alum explained way back when, in a 2006 interview with the Guardian about the Elf sequel and the lucrative offer.“That’s what was on offer for it. But I killed the idea of a sequel. I never liked it – $29 [million] does seem a lot of money for a guy to wear tights, but it’s what the marketplace will bear,” he told the publication.“It’s insane, but it’s not my call. The studios perpetuate it and they make it hard to say no.”He added that turning down the cash “wasn’t difficult at all”. “I remember asking myself … Could I withstand the criticism when it’s bad and they say, ‘He did the sequel for the money?’ I decided I wouldn’t be able to. I didn’t want to wander into an area that could erase all the good work I’ve done – but you watch, I’ll do some sequel in the future that’s crap.”Elf star James Caan previously hinted that Ferrell and director Jon Favreau did not get along on set and thus, axed any chance for a Christmas sequel. Favreau, 55, and Ferrell hated each other so much, that Ferrell refused to star in another Elf movie if the filmmaker stayed on.“We were gonna do it and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I finally got a franchise movie, I could make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do,’” Caan told the radio station 92.3 Cleveland last year. “And the director and Will didn’t get along very well. So, Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director, and he had it in his contract, it was one of those things.”This story originally appeared on New York Post and has been reproduced here with permission
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