Will Ferrell reacts to Asda commercial featuring Buddy the Elf

If you’d like to feel older than usual, Will Ferrell’s Elf will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary next year. The Christmas classic found Ferrell playing a human raised by Santa’s elves who learns about his origins and heads to New York City to meet his biological father. The actor has largely resisted calls for an Elf sequel all these years, but Buddy has returned in a commercial for the UK supermarket chain Asda.

As you can likely tell from the Asda commercial, Will Ferrell didn’t return to reprise the role of Buddy the elf. The commercial instead cut scenes right from the movie and inserted them into the commercial, and did it pretty damn well.

Will Ferrell was asked about the commercial while speaking with Yahoo Entertainment UK, and despite not having to appear in it beyond the old footage, it seems that the actor actually made some good money. “Well… it kind of helped me finally get paid market value for when I shot Elf,” Ferrell said. “I thought it was well done.“

Danny Kleinman, who directed the Asda Elf commercial, said that the production was a unique challenge. “For me this was a unique challenge, working with an A list Hollywood actor, without him being there in person, and crafting other actors around his iconic performance,” Kleinman said. “It was important not only to make the action seamless but also convincingly transport him to a Christmas Asda store, creating a Hollywood feel to Asda’s Christmas celebrations.” The results were well worth it as the commercial has been warmly received.

Will Ferrell can currently be seen starring alongside Ryan Reynolds in Spirited, a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with a musical twist. The film was released in select theaters last month and is available to stream on Apple TV+ as of today. You can check out a review from our own JimmyO right here.