Owen Wilson has confessed he has doubts about how Zoolander 2 will be received.

The 2001 comedy starring Owen and Ben Stiller as male models Hansel McDonald and Derek Zoolander on a mission to save the world featured a string of celebrity cameos and became a cult hit.

The pair are reprising their roles in a highly anticipated sequel, due out in February.

But Owen said: “It’s odd to be doing a movie we did 14 years ago and it didn’t do that well when it came out.

“I don’t know how this one will do, but people were excited by the idea of us doing it, so we’ll see how it turns out. In Europe and South America, that movie really has a following.”

Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson on the catwalk as Derek and Hansel (Christophe Ena/AP)

To announce the sequel, Owen and Ben, surprised fashionistas at Paris Fashion Week by strutting along the catwalk in character to spread the news of their return as the dim-witted but “really, really good-looking” male models.

“It was a little nerve-racking, the way we announced the movie,” Owen admitted. “It got a great response. It did feel like we were in a band because we walked out on stage and people were really cheering for us.”

The new movie, set 15 years on from the first, is rumoured to feature cameos from the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton.

Owen is currently starring in new action thriller No Escape, about a family whose move to south-east Asia becomes a nightmare when they get caught up in a revolution.

Owen said: “If the part had been written in a way that was more like The Rock and, all of a sudden, my character picks up a grenade launcher, then I probably wouldn’t have connected to the story, because I wouldn’t have seen myself in that way.

“But the way it was written, especially with the beginning scenes with the kids, it felt very familiar. It’s kind of like taking the dad from Marley & Me to south-east Asia where there’s a revolution.”