Seth MacFarlane to Make Directorial Debut with Ted

Posted by on April 13th, 2010   Filed under: Comedy
Source: Deadline New York

sethmacfarlaneted

After years of writing and directing animated TV shows, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is about to step behind the camera on his first ever live action feature film. According to Deadline New York, Universal has picked up an R-rated comedy that he has written called Ted, about a man and his teddy bear. The bear will be brought to life through CG and will be voiced by MacFarlane himself, who will also direct the film. The movie is budgeted at $65 million.

Considering how much money MacFarlane has made for Fox over the years, it seems a bit odd that the movie would end up at a different studio. Apparently Fox had an issue with the hard R-rating. Unfortunately, this could now lead to complications as Universal wants to get it into production as soon as possible, but they will have to work around MacFarlane’s duties on Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show. I’ve never been a big fan of MacFarlane’s animated shows, but this seems like a logical step for him and I’ll be curious to see what he can do in a mostly live action setting. The obvious comparison is Mike Judge, who has definitely gone on to make some decent feature films. Do you think Seth MacFarlane has what it takes to direct his own movie?



  • Big fan of Family Guy, unsure of American Dad and Cleveland though. I don’t know if this sort of humour can be transferred from cartoon to big screen. Good luck to him and looking forward to watching it.

  • kyriacos

    I am a bit optimistic but i am holding a really small basked on this one..

  • Mike

    meh

  • Colin

    I’m interested to see where McFarlane will go with this, but I hate what’s become of Family Guy.

  • Interested, I love Family Guy, I just hope he doesn’t do Family Guy on the big screen, hopefully it’s not the same recipe as Family Guy.

  • swarez

    If there’s a musical number in it I’m going to punch him in the face. You like musicals, we get it!

  • Steve

    How can this possibly be a good idea. I cannot understand why people love Family Guy. It’s not humour, or comedy, it’s pandering to the same sort of ‘point and grunt if you get the reference’ jokes that the Spoof movies go for. This guy’s the writer? I’m surprised they even HAD a writer because from what I’ve seen, there’s very little decent dialogue.

    Every episode is peppered with meaningless references that don’t affect and or are relevant to the plot at all, shoved in, seemingly just for the damned sake of it.

    PS: I’ve only seen episodes from the last few years on and off, and the comedy blackhole that is the Empire Strikes Back riff. If these are any example of his writing ability, the movie’s going to be garbage indeed.