Over 20 years after the cult classic first hit theaters, Seann William Scott shares his thoughts on a potential Dude, Where’s My Car? sequel. Co-starring Scott and Ashton Kutcher, the 2000 comedy centered on two stoner best friends who enjoy a wild night of partying, but are unable to remember anything, including where they parked their car, resulting in a bizarre day of retracing their steps. Despite being panned by critics, the movie was a box office smash, grossing $100 million against its $13 million budget, and garnering a cult following in the years since.
While speaking exclusively with Screen Rant to discuss his villainous role in The Wrath of Becky, Seann William Scott addressed the chances for a Dude, Where’s My Car? sequel. Though admitting he hasn’t spoken with Ashton Kutcher about the idea, he is keen to work with his co-star again and joked about promising Conan O’Brien they’d make the sequel after years of being asked about it on his show. See what Scott shared below:
No, we’ve never talked about it. You know what, I always hear about it when I would do Conan, his show. He would always bring it up, he was like, “Guys, can you make that Seriously, Dude, Where’s My Car?” I’m like, “We have to for you, man.” But I think the title alone is hilarious enough to make the movie, but I would love to work with Ashton again. If there was a like a super funny, weird, f—-d up script, for sure. But yeah, I haven’t heard anything about it. I haven’t thought about [a story], but like either exactly the same, or things have gone bad for them. Maybe my character got fat — not that that means bad things, you can be fat and have things go good for you. But just maybe it’s gone downhill for him in every way. I think that would be fun to see those two guys where it’s like, again, something happened, maybe it’s like they hadn’t seen each other in so long, and they’re at the reunion and they get super f—-d up again, and then are like, “Holy s–t, we lost the car,” and it’s a whole new set, “What did we do? We have to retrace our steps.” I don’t know, do you have any ideas?
Can A Dude, Where’s My Car Sequel? Still Work?
Scott also admitted to Screen Rant that his idea for a Dude, Where’s My Car? sequel may run too closely to that of The Hangover, which itself already largely borrowed the plot of friends looking for something missing after a wild night of partying from the 2000 comedy. Unlike the Todd Phillips-helmed trilogy, however, Scott and Kutcher’s film took a far more outrageous approach to its plot, including aliens, time travel and PG-13 stoner jokes, leaving some to wonder if a sequel to the latter can still work today.
Looking back at the original film, there are a few elements of Dude, Where’s My Car? that wouldn’t be possible by today’s standards, namely jokes surrounding transgender women, while The Hangover trilogy itself already has a number of jokes that have become dated in the near-14 years since it launched. However, given The Hangover movies were made on budgets at least triple that of Scott and Kutcher’s film, the lower-scale sensibility that made the latter a cult classic could keep the sequel’s budget low, even in a more inflated economy.
One of the biggest aspects that could either help or hurt a potential Dude, Where’s My Car? sequel is the future of 20th Century Studios releases. With the original produced by 20th Century Fox, the now-Disney-owned studio has seen many of their projects get straight-to-Hulu releases, some of which have proven successful, and could be a release strategy that pays off for a possible sequel. Though with Disney removing dozens of titles from both Hulu and Disney+, it may be better for a Dude, Where’s My Car? follow-up to wait until things settle at the House of Mouse.