Seth Macfarlane really wants to be a movie star. And we get it, we really do, but that isn’t enough to justify the existence of A Million Ways to Die in the West. Critics are pegging Macfarlane’s latest as “astonishingly lazy” (TIME Magazine) and “altogether wrongheaded” (Film School Rejects) and its overall 34% score on Rotten Tomatoes means that this one is easily skippable.

Seth Macfarlane
Seth Macfarlane's latest wasn't worth the hype.

The only hope Macfarlane has of redeeming himself as a writer and, to an extent, as a director, is for his other project, Ted 2, to be a stellar success. So where are we with that one?

Watch the trailer for A Million Ways

Well, Ted 2 is yet to begin pre-production and a finished script is yet to be announced. The film’s planned release on June 26 2015 puts the production on a tight schedule so far, but it might just be that Ways to Die has been taking up too much of Macfarlane’s time.

As for what we know about the film – not much. There is no plot outline yet, which leads us to believe that Ted 2 was conceived more as a way to milk the unexpected popularity of the original, rather than an actual way to develop the story. Which is fair enough, since the story of a talking, horny teddy bear doesn’t really call for too much artistic integrity.

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Mark Wahlberg will reprise his role as John Bennett, while Mila Kunis will return as his girlfriend Laurie, but only in a cameo appearance. The female lead this time went to Amanda Seyfried, whose casting was announced by Deadline back in February.