MacFarlane’s zany Ted tells the story of the boisterous friendship between the human Mark Wahlberg and his stuffed teddy bear who had magically come to life, at a wish he expressed back in the Eighties. The unrated comedy achieved notable success, and now Matt Damon, in an interview given to GQ, explains how it had been proposed to him. It’s not the first time Damon has spoken of missed opportunities: it’s now a classic if his ongoing regret over saying no to Avatar, for the part of Sam Worthington (though it should be noted that, according to James Cameron, a contract had never actually been finalized). Still, let’s read what Matt has to say about Ted.
Ted Almost Had Matt Damon as Lead, Replacing Mark Wahlberg
Yes, Seth MacFarlane had also sent the script of Ted (2012) to Matt Damon, for the part of John Bennett, a incorrigible bachelor who wants to enjoy life with his best friend, the crude teddy bear of the title, voiced in the original by MacFarlane himself. Damon, however, declined, not because he did not like the screenplay, but because he didn’t see it in the right way: “I never like to say these things, because I don’t want to live with regrets, but I can reveal that I turned down Ted, and yet I had never laughed so hard reading a script. I even took it to dinner, to read parts to my friends. But then I overanalyzed it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I told myself: well, I think the teddy bear part is the best.” […] I thought about it too much and I talked myself out of it. And they even shot it in Boston; it would have been a chance for me to stay a bit at home, my father has now died, when I think back I tell myself: what the heck, that would have been six months at home. […] But Mark is fantastic, as is the film, I wouldn’t have improved it.
Ted, produced for $50 million, grossed worldwide a whopping $550 million, and by 2015 already spawned a sequel, Ted 2, by far less acclaimed: $215 million at the box office on a budget of $68 million (source Box Office Mojo). MacFarlane, creator and in part voice actor of the Griffins, for about ten years has stopped frequenting cinema, especially after the flop of the film he directed and starred in, A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014).
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