Oftentimes a big star will be humbled by a few flops and he/she will take a step back to work on a smaller project or two before making another attempt at something as unnecessarily expensive as Land of the Lost. Is this what’s going on with Will Ferrell, though? According to Variety, he’s signed on to a little comedy called Everything Must Go, a title which could be attributed to his recent bombs, including The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which he produced and tried to help sell via a much-publicized cameo.

But this is no Winter Passing or Melinda and Melinda. Yes, Everything Must Go is an “indie,” but it still has a budget of $10 million and it’s still a high-profile sitcom sort of movie. I’m sure it will be less goofy than his major studio vehicles, but we’re not looking at one of those cases where a Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler starts doing dramatic roles and acquiring (ultimately unsubstantiated) Oscar buzz. Not that Ferrell doesn’t have it in him.

Still, the only thing Ferrell needs to learn after this past summer is that he should stay away from huge budgets and silly sci-fi concepts and stick with Adam McKay-directed comedies (and the like). No bigger, no smaller. Fortunately, next summer’s The Other Guys will come along at just the right time to remind us what we like our Will Ferrell movies to be like.

Check out what other film bloggers have to say about Will Ferrell’s seemingly retreating career move after the jump:

• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba gives some background on Ferrell’s career downturn:
  

  It was 2005’s Kicking and Screaming — when Will Ferrell stepped into the family comedy realm — that we all realized that the man’s best years were probably already behind him. He surprised us with Stranger than Fiction, but it’s been paycheck movie after paycheck movie ever since, as Ferrell has evolved into the new Eddie Murphy. Land of the Lost was the nail in the temple — while many of his crap efforts had managed to turn in massive box-office receipts, Land of the Lost sank like Mary Jo Kopechne.

• S.T. VanAirsdale at Movieline senses an acknowledgment of the downturn and comments on the premise:
  

  Perhaps realizing that a vacation from mega-budget overexposure might be in order, Will Ferrell will downsize both on- and off-screen in the $10 million indie Everything Must Go. [...] The ensuing sale of the items unfolds over four days of bittersweet life lessons, concluding with a curmudgeonly grandfather-type negotiating Ferrell down to 50 cents for a signed Land of the Lost script.

• Krystal Clark at ScreenCrave wants this to be Ferrell’s atonement:
  

  Will Ferrell has signed on for another comedy (no surprise there), but this time it’s an independent project. A far cry from his previous blockbusters Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights, the actor will star in a low budget film entitled, Everything Must Go. [...] and I hope it’s a redemption project because I still haven’t recovered from Land of the Lost (shiver).

• Matt Goldberg at Collider addresses a quote claiming that this will “show a side of him that we haven’t really seen before.”
  

  No, “Stranger Than Fiction” was a side of him we hadn’t really seen before.  This sounds exactly like the side of him we’ve seen many times before.  But I honestly hope it will be a comedic change up for Ferrell because his comedy has become too predictable and comedians who fail to evolve fail to stay relevant.

• Tim Gomez at Cinema Blend discusses the evolution of comedic actors:
  

  Bill Murray is a rarity. He’s one of the few comedy actors who has successfully embraced a new role as an independent, sometimes dramatic actor. Jim Carrey could’ve done it. He was amazing in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine. Adam Sandler still has a chance to do it. He was a shining light in the flawed Funny People. And Will Ferrell still has a shot at it. Remember Stranger than Fiction and the lesser known Winter Passing?

• Oly Lyttelton at The Playlist is glad Ferrell is taking a break from big budget comedy:
  

  It’s good to see Ferrell branching out a little bit — while we love the brilliant stupidity of “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers,” some of his other comedies can be pretty terrible (“Semi-Pro,” “Blades of Glory”), but he gave an admirably straight-ish performance in “Stranger Than Fiction” (even if the film itself wasn’t so-so at best).

• Alex Billington at FirstShowing is very happy Ferrell is stepping back:
  

  Finally, a Will Ferrell movie I’m actually excited about again! [...] Sounds like it’ll be a good, funny story. And I’m glad it’s not a studio production. [...] I’m hoping it shows up at a film festival as well, as that would really give this project a chance to shine without going the studio route (at least until it gets picked up). After all of his recent crap like Land of the Lost, I’m so glad Ferrell is going back to do an indie film.

• Carson Reeves at ScriptShadow is quite upset that Ferrell has been cast in one of his favorite unproduced scripts:
  

  there’s some real weight to this character and I think we’ve seen from Will Ferrell in the past that the only weight he has is in his abdomen area. I guess I should be happy that at least now the movie will be seen. They’ll have an advertising campaign. People will know about it. But I imagine this nightmare scenario where the studio secretly tricks Ferrell into shooting the movie, but then they have “screenings,” determine the film is “not working” then cut it to turn it into a comedy (which was really their plan all along).