Ben Stiller scored one of his earliest starring roles in the Disney dark comedy Heavyweights, and although it was a box office bomb on its initial release, it’s since been deservingly reappraised as a cult classic. Throughout the 2000s, Stiller became one of the biggest comedy stars at the box office. As a member of the “Frat Pack” alongside Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, Stiller played hilarious characters in such hit comedies as Meet the Parents, The Royal Tenenbaums, Along Came Polly, Starsky & Hutch, and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

And Stiller doesn’t just star in great comedies; in some cases, he also writes and directs them. He directed and co-wrote Zoolander and Tropic Thunder, which have both become modern classics of the genre. But he’s had his fair share of flops, too: Duplex, Envy, The Watch, Zoolander 2. Just one year after making his feature-length directorial debut with his relatable, generation-defining hit Reality Bites, Stiller starred in a much wackier movie that got panned by critics and bombed at the box office — but it’s not nearly as bad as its reception would suggest.

Ben Stiller’s Heavyweights Deserves Its Cult Classic Status

It’s One Of Disney’s Darkest Comedies

In 1995, The Mighty Ducks screenwriter Steven Brill made his directorial debut with Heavyweights, based on a script he co-wrote with future Knocked Up director Judd Apatow. Heavyweights takes place at a weight loss camp for boys. Stiller plays the megalomaniacal fitness entrepreneur who takes over the camp and sucks all the fun out of it, prompting the kids to stage a coup and overthrow him. Heavyweights received mixed reviews from critics, with a perfectly polarized 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it bombed at the box office on its original release, grossing just $17,689,177 (via Box Office Mojo).

The box office failure of Heavyweights can mostly be attributed to a tonal tug-o’-war between the filmmakers and the studio. Disney wanted a typical family-friendly comedy they knew how to market, but the movie Brill and Apatow wrote was much darker and more demented than the average Disney film. Heavyweights has since been reevaluated as a cult classic, and it’s a must-see for Stiller fans; Tony Perkis is basically a prototype of White Goodman. The humor is definitely a little dated — there are a lot of problematic jokes at the expense of plus-size children — but it’s mostly a fun watch.

Ben Stiller’s Career Wasn’t Hurt By His Disney Box Office Bomb

A Few Years Down The Line, He Would Become A Bona Fide Movie Star

Although Heavyweights underperformed at the box office, it wasn’t much of a blow to Stiller’s career. One year later, he directed The Cable Guy, another pitch-black comedy that would go on to find a cult audience, and despite falling short of its star Jim Carrey’s biggest successes, it still grossed over $100 million (via Box Office Mojo). Two years after that, Stiller played the lead role in the Farrelly brothers’ delightfully raunchy romantic comedy There’s Something About Mary, which was a huge box office hit and has been praised as one of the best comedies ever made.

Another two years after that, Stiller starred in Meet the Parents, which was another mᴀssive commercial success, big enough to launch a franchise. By that point, Stiller was a bona fide movie star who could get big crowds to come out to theaters just by having his name on a marquee. In the 25 years since then, Stiller has continued to work steadily. In recent years, he’s focused more on directing — scoring one of the biggest critical hits of his career with Severance — but he still stars in the occasional comedy movie.

Heavyweights Is An Underrated Ben Stiller Movie – And So Are These

Plenty Of Ben Stiller Movies Deserve More Love

Heavyweights is an underrated gem, and it’s far from the only underrated gem of Stiller’s career. For every big hit like Dodgeball or Meet the Parents, there’s a great movie that fell by the wayside. Stiller’s remake of The Heartbreak Kid isn’t quite as sharp or sophisticated as the Elaine May original, but it has some huge laughs (largely thanks to a scene-stealing Danny McBride). His adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a lot more moving and profound than the critics gave it credit for.

Stiller’s 2017 movie Brad’s Status, written and directed by The White Lotus creator Mike White, is a great little grounded comedy touching on relatable insecurities like jealousy and empty-nest syndrome. Most recently, Ben Stiller starred in the Christmas dramedy Nutcrackers, which received mostly negative reviews from critics. While Nutcrackers does admittedly follow a pretty familiar formula of a grumpy loner reluctantly warming up to the children placed under his care, it’s a really funny, really sweet take on that formulaic story.

Source: Box Office Mojo