Penelope Cruz will star in Zoolander 2, the long-gestating sequel to Ben Stiller’s classic comedy about a hapless male supermodel, reports Deadline.

The high-profile signing - Cruz is an Oscar-winner for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona and one of the most recognisable Spanish actors in the world - suggests the follow up is back on track 13 years after Stiller first brought viewers Blue Steel and the Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. The new film, with a screenplay by Tropic Thunder’s Justin Theroux, is expected to see the return of Owen Wilson as rival supermodel Hansel and Will Ferrell as fashion industry mogul Mugatu. Stiller will naturally be back in the director’s chair, and will reprise his role as Zoolander.

The actor and film-maker said in 2010 that the sequel would focus on how the fashion industry has moved on in the years since Stiller and Wilson fought it out for catwalk supremacy. “In the fashion world, if you go away for a year, it’s changed - it just happens so quickly,” he told MTV. “I think the idea in the beginning of the movie is that it’s 10 years later, and Derek and Hansel are literally forgotten. Nobody remembers who they are, so they have to reinvent themselves.”

Zoolander 2 is due to arrive in the wake of success for Jim Carrey comeback Dumb and Dumber To at the weekend. The Farrelly brothers’ sequel topped the US box office with an opening haul of $36.1m, 20 years after the 1994 original introduced bumbling buffoons Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne.