2001
Zoolander opens
Ben Stiller's fashion-world satire reached theaters two weeks after September 11, stumbled with critics, then grew into a widely quoted comedy.
Paramount Pictures released Zoolander in theaters on September 28, 2001. Ben Stiller directed the comedy, co-wrote it, co-produced it, and played its title character, Derek Zoolander, a male model of great vanity and very little sense. In the story, fashion mogul Jacobim Mugatu, played by Will Ferrell, brainwashes Derek to assassinate the new Prime Minister of Malaysia, whose labor reforms threaten the industry’s cheap factories. Owen Wilson co-starred as Derek’s rival Hansel, with Christine Taylor, Milla Jovovich, Jon Voight, and Stiller’s father, Jerry Stiller, in the cast.
The character began years earlier in two short films Stiller made with Drake Sather for the VH1 Fashion Awards in 1996 and 1997. The feature leaned on that world: its opening scenes were shot at the real 2000 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards during commercial breaks, and a long list of celebrities appeared as themselves. David Bowie, for one, judged a runway “walk-off” between the two models.
The timing was hard. The film opened about two weeks after the September 11 attacks, and Stiller chose to digitally remove the World Trade Center towers from background shots of New York. Malaysia’s censors called the film unsuitable and it never played there, and Singapore banned it for several years. Even so, it took in $15.5 million on its opening weekend, second behind Don’t Say a Word, and finished with $60.8 million worldwide against a $28 million budget.
Why it matters
Reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert gave it one star and called it a victim of bad timing, though Stiller later said Ebert privately told him he had come around to finding it funny. Other critics praised it as a sharp, silly satire of the fashion business, and its catchphrases, poses, and cameos gave it a long life after its theatrical run.
That afterlife led to a sequel, Zoolander 2, in February 2016, and the towers removed in 2001 were restored for the Blu-ray release that same year. In late 2022 clips of Stiller and Wilson spread widely on TikTok, introducing the film to viewers who were not born when it opened.
Did you know?
The name Derek Zoolander came from two real Calvin Klein models, Mark Vanderloo and Johnny Zander.
