Star of 2011 hit says second movie would have made a lot of money but wouldn't have been right thing to do artistically
Kristen Wiig has ruled out appearing in a potential Bridesmaids sequel. The actor told Harper's Bazaar she turned down a sequel to 2011's box office smash because it wouldn't have been the right thing to do artistically. "It wasn't a hard decision," she said. "We knew during the first one, this was it. We would have made a lot of money if there was a second one, but that's not my goal in my creative life."
Talk of a sequel to the bachelorette comedy, which took almost $300m (£200m) globally on a $30m budget and made stars of Wiig and Melissa McCarthy, has re-emerged following the release of The Heat in the US at the weekend. The Heat is directed by Bridesmaids' Paul Feig and stars Sandra Bullock as a hard-nosed FBI special agent who finds herself teamed with a potty-mouthed Boston cop (McCarthy) to take down a Russian mobster.
Studio Universal was reportedly considering a Bridesmaids sequel without Wiig and co-writer Annie Mumolo, with the prospect of aping the financial success of the The Hangover trilogy. However, producer Judd Apatow said at the time that he was not keen on producing a sub-standard followup, and the prospects of a sequel have diminished as time has passed.
Nevertheless, another enduringly popular cult comedy, 2004's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, is about to get a belated sequel in the form of this December's Anchorman 2. Wiig stars in that one opposite Will Ferrell and Steve Carell.