Inside Seth MacFarlane’s Movie Career: What’s Next?

Even if you’ve never heard of Seth MacFarlane, there’s a strong chance that you already know his face or his voice from somewhere.

The comic provides the voice for many of the characters in Family Guy and American Dad!, and stars in The Orville sci-fi series as Captain Ed Mercer. MacFarlane is also known for a handful of movies, including Ted, Ted 2, and A Million Ways to Die in the West. 

His recent activities raise a question, though. With the continuation of the Ted story abandoning the cinema for home streaming platforms, has MacFarlane finally given up on making movies?

The Orville

First, much of what MacFarlane is currently involved in seems to be in a precarious position. Family Guy has dealt with worries of cancellation almost since its inception and was actually abandoned by FOX in 1999 and 2002, mainly because it allocated the show to time slots known to be death sentences. MacFarlane now seems to want Family Guy to move away from FOX, which raises questions about its future.

Of course, even without Family Guy, the appetite for adult entertainment in its most ironic forms is unlikely to go away. Just as adult animations like South Park and Rick & Morty have cornered their respective markets with cartoon graphics and irreverent comedy, the bingo industry makes use of stereotypically cute imagery to attract people to an adult pastime, i.e. online gambling. 

The website Buzz Bingo offers Fluffy Favourites and Sky Piggies slots to this end. The former title includes a bonus game that has the player try to pluck soft toys from a claw machine. It’s all drawn in a hand-painted style, too. It’s this out-of-place-ness that makes adult animation and movies like Ted so appealing, even if the basic ideas themselves aren’t especially unique anymore. Slots continue to be a popular alternative in the entertainment industry.

Unfortunately, for MacFarlane fans, The Orville seems to be doomed after Season 3, as well, as the stars seek other projects.

Naked Gun

MacFarlane hasn’t given up on movies just yet. He’s reportedly pencilled in to produce the fourth entry in the Naked Gun franchise, with Liam Neeson joining as the son of original protagonist Frank Drebin. This would seem to move MacFarlane away from acting and writing, something that he did with Family Guy during the period of Ted’s development. He now only provides voices to the show. 

Just to add to the previous, MacFarlane hasn’t actually directed anything since 2015’s Ted 2, either, which received average critical reviews. Compared to his previous effort, A Million Ways to Die in the West, whose title was mocked by MacFarlane himself, Ted 2 actually performed rather well. There’s no denying that Ted was a career highlight for MacFarlane as a writer/director, however. 

It may be that MacFarlane hopes to shift back into television with the new Ted series on Peacock, as well as the upcoming The End is Nye, a well-received documentary show about natural disasters. For long-time fans, this might come as a relief, as the actor’s priorities seem to have been split for quite some time now.

Whatever happens, hopefully, we’ll still get to see Family Guy and The Orville on TV.