Seth MacFarlane recently told TheWrap that there is “no plan” to make a third season of his “Ted” prequel series because production costs are too high.
“What I kept hearing [from Peacock and Universal] was, ‘Listen, the show is really expensive to produce and there’s no way to do it at a lower cost.’ So I said, ‘All right, I hear you loud and clear.’ So I wrote the last scene with Max [Burkholder] walking into a gym, presumably coming out as Mark Wahlberg in the first ‘Ted’ film,” MacFarlane explained. “So [showrunners] Brad Walsh and Paul Corrigan and I kind of painted ourselves into a corner. Is there a way to do it? There’s always a way to do anything. But at the moment, it might take some narrative acrobatics. There’s no plan that I’ve heard of at the moment to do Season 3.”
TheWrap reports that Peacock has not decided on whether “Ted” will receive a third season. Universal did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment.
Based on the 2012 comedy film, the “Ted” TV series follows the teenage version of Mark Wahlberg’s John, as he navigates adolescence with the help of his foul-mouthed teddy bear. Max Burkholder stars as young John and MacFarlane, once again, voices Ted. Other cast members include Giorgia Whigham, Alanna Ulbach, Scott Grimes and Ara Hollyday.
While the live-action “Ted” series may be coming to an end, Peacock unveiled an animated series in May 2025, with Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried and Jessica Barth reprising their roles from the original film.
MacFarlane made sure to give kudos to his production team and camera crew for pulling off the first two seasons of “Ted.” He said the amount of CGI that was required was like “doing an ‘Avengers’ movie every 22 minutes.”
“It’s very good that we had two ‘Ted’ films under our belt, because the workload is something that, on a weekly basis, is just insurmountable. And it’s a testament to our production team, to our DP Jeff Mygatt, to our camera crew, to our visual effects crew and [visual effects supervisor] Blair Clark and our wonderful crew in Melbourne, Australia, at Framestore that this was able to be achieved on a weekly basis,” MacFarlane said. “It’s like you’re doing an ‘Avengers’ movie every 22 minutes with the amount of CGI that it takes, not only to animate the bear, but to act the bear. It’s something we couldn’t have done if we had not had the education of doing two films 10 years earlier.”
