Seth MacFarlane Discusses His New 'Ted' Prequel Series And Recasting Mark Wahlberg
Seth MacFarlane, creator and actor on Family Guy, American Dad, and The Orville: New Horizons, discussed his new show at the PGA Produced By conference on Sunday, Ted, based on his big screen teddy bear come to life.
As reported by TheWrap, MacFarlane discussed the Peacock prequel, which is now set in the 90s, and how the lack of Mark Wahlberg - recast to be a teenager - changed the feel of the property, as did the concept of making Ted younger and less crass than he was in the films.
"For me, the challenge was really how does this character exist in a world without Mark Wahlberg? That was really a two-hander. The movie was a real feat of visual effects work for the artists who did it. But also, if you look at the raw footage before the bear was placed into it, a lot of it was Mark."
He also addressed the use of CGI and how it can hold up a production:
"You can move as fast as you want in production, and you're still sort of at the mercy of the six, eight months, however long it takes for the CGI to be completed. So you know, in many ways, it's what we just went through with 'The Orville,' [it] was just a massive undertaking of post-production. The show was just now airing, and I feel like we finished shooting a long time ago."
Conceptually, the idea of giving Ted a more fleshed-out origin story without the restraints of a time-capped feature film could revitalize the property in a way the big-screen versions couldn't - though much of the fate of the prequel will rest on the chemistry of this younger iteration of Ted and the actor playing the 16-year-old John Bennett.
There is no release date at this time for Peacock's Ted.
