Seth MacFarlane working on a Blazing Saddles-style western

Following the success of Ted, in which he provided the voice of an animated teddy bear (and wrote and directed), Seth MacFarlane is now working on his live-action movie acting debut, and it's going to be a western. A Million Ways to Die in the West, which will be written by MacFarlane and his Ted co-writers, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, is being described as "in the vein of Blazing Saddles," which is a pretty tall order. It's normal to be very skeptical when you hear such a comparison, but I actually feel pretty (cautiously) optimistic about this. While it doesn't sound like it will be taking on race issues quite as directly as Blazing Saddles, it will be about how hard life was in the Old West compared to how it is today. Probably lots of jokes about nonchalantly shooting people, outhouses, and horses as both transportation and travel companions. Personally, I tend to like how MacFarlane takes the most mundane things and turns them into entire bits, so I will be very interested in seeing this thing, which is scheduled to start shooting next summer. But I'm not crowning him an heir-apparent to Mel Brooks or anything.

However, worth mentioning: Carl Reiner, a Mel Brooks guy, happens to like MacFarlane's style, as he wrote in the paper version of Entertainment Weekly's Entertainers of the Year issue.

Photo credit: EW

Seth MacFarlane to Direct and Star in His First Western [Splitsider]

When she isn't nerding out that the holidays are coming, Jamie is a reader at Monday Night Fan Fiction at Fontana's in Chinatown, NYC (next date: TBA, 7:00 PM). All work is original, written by the readers, so if you have a brilliant fanfic idea stuck in your head, send it via Twitter: @jamielikesthis

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http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

Awesome! Ted was way better then it had any right to be and I look forward to Seth’s Hollywood career exploding.

Here’s hoping he brings back the comedy style of movies like Airplane or Naked Gun!
- juca5056
  
  I couldn’t disagree with you more. But that’s ok. I found Ted to be more low brow than any episode of Family Guy while still using the FG joke style. Just my opinion though. Glad you enjoyed it.
http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

“A Million Ways to Die in the West”? I prematurely call bullshit on that one. I remember “House of 1,000 Corpses” — I only counted 120!
- ChicagoD
  
  It’ll be a very long movie.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski

I’m just loving the capsule description of Carl Reiner as a Mel Brooks guy. Great comic writers and actors both.
woodpeckersymphony

misogynist makes good!
- 2overwrought
  
  Surveys’ say?
  
  Unlikely.
vrplumber

Mel Brooks is a genius. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein in the same year? Quality and quantity.
winkybb

I just don’t find they guy’s (SM, not MB) work to be funny in the slightest.
https://twitter.com/misterjayem MrJM

I believe we already have a Blazing Saddles-style western.

And it is perfect.
nicholas1987

A plagiarist makes another derivative movie.
10xor01

Seth MacFarlane is the new Mel Brooks? Let’s hope the history of the world ends later this month as predicted.