Seth MacFarlane compares “Ted” budget to Marvel movie while giving grim update on potential season 3

Shania RussellSun, March 8, 2026 at 11:02 PM UTC

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Seth MacFarlane voices brash teddy bear, TedCredit: Peacock

Sorry diehard Ted fans — turns out AI Bill Clinton is the least of this show's worries.

Series creator Seth MacFarlane has just delivered a dismal update on the future of the sleazeball comedy: Unfortunately, the obnoxious teddy bear may not return for round 3 because the show is just too dang expensive.

"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," MacFarlane revealed during a Friday conversation with TheWrap. "So I said, 'All right, I hear you loud and clear.'"

He explained that this inspired the final moments of season 2, in which main character John (Max Burkholder) commits to getting really buff, a reminder that the series is a prequel to 2012's Ted movie, in which his character is played by Mark Wahlberg.

Seth MacFarlane and TedCredit: Elyse Jankowski/Variety via Getty

"I wrote the last scene with Max 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."

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Peacock for additional comment.

MacFarlane went on to praise the show's visual effects team for bringing the foul-mouthed teddy bear to life across two seasons, comprising 15 episodes.

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"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," MacFarlane said. "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."

Ted and Max Burkholder as John in 'Ted'Credit: Peacock

He continued, "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."

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Based on the 2012 film of the same name, the Ted TV series follows naive teenager John as he navigates growing up with the help of his brash and uncensored anthropomorphic teddy bear who he wished to life when he was a child.

While the live-action series may be coming to a close, Ted will live on in another form. Peacock announced an animated spin-off last May with Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, and Jessica Barth set to reprise their roles from the original film.

Season 2 of Ted is now streaming on Peacock.

on Entertainment Weekly

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