Will Ferrell Officially Responds To Reported Elf Conflicts With Jon Favreau 23 Years Later

23 years after Elf’s release, Will Ferrell has officially responded to the reported conflicts between him and director Jon Favreau during filming.

As one of Ferrell’s first projects following his departure from Saturday Night Live, not only was Elf critically and commercially successful during its original theatrical run, it’s still widely considered to be one of the best Christmas movies. This came in spite of tensions between the actor and Favreau that have been revealed in the years since. Ferrell has now given his side of the story about why he and the filmmaker butted heads while working on Elf.

While appearing on Happy Sad Confused to talk about his new Netflix series The Hawk, Ferrell recalled to host Josh Horowitz how the disagreements between him and Favreau boiled down to them having different priorities on Elf. The comedy icon admitted he was “always pushing for sillier comedy at times a little more,” while Favreau wanted the movie “to have a really strong story and heart.” Ferrell continued:

And so I would kind of go, after we had kind of taken a couple passes at a scene, I’d be like, “OK, I see what you’re talking about now.” And then I think Jon would let me do my thing and be like, “OK, I see what you’re talking about.” And I think that push-pull is what you see [in the finished film].

In 2020, James Caan, who played Walter Hobbs, father of Ferrell’s Buddy, shared that the reason Elf 2 never got made was because Ferrell and Favreau “didn’t get along very well” in the first movie. While Ferrell didn’t directly address this claim from his late co-star, he did acknowledge that there were creative differences between him and Favreau on Elf. However, from his perspective, these conflicts helped pave the way for the final product that’s still beloved more than two decades later.

Ferrell and Caan were joined in the Elf cast by Mary Steenburgen, Bob Newhart, Ed Asner, Zooey Deschanel, and Daniel Tay, among others. David Berenbaum wrote the script, and Jon Berg, Todd Komarnicki, and Shauna Robertson produced. In addition to its positive critical reception, the movie made over $228 million worldwide off a reported $33 million budget. Elf was later adapted into a stage musical and a stop-motion animated special, the latter of which first aired on NBC.

Along with Caan’s aforementioned claim, other reasons attributed to Elf 2 never happening include Ferrell disapproving of the script that was written, as well as believing it would “look slightly pathetic” if he put Buddy’s elf tights back on. That said, that hasn’t stopped him from revisiting his character in a unique way. He dressed as a disheveled Buddy who’d had a “tough holiday season” at a Los Angeles Kings game in December 2024, complete with a prop cigarette.

Ahead of Elf returning as holiday season programming, Ferrell can be seen starring opposite Molly Shannon, Jimmy Tatro, Fortune Feimster, Chris Parnell, and more in The Hawk season 1, which premiered July 16 on Netflix. Favreau’s latest movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, is now available for digital purchase and rental.