Will Ferrell said he would never participate in a sequel for any of his movies. That was until the love for Ron Burgundy became too much for the Anchorman 2 writer and star.
“The fandom for this movie just kept growing with each year and after doing so many trips to Australia promoting other movies, where, after the second question, all I’m being asked is, ‘Are you going to do a sequel to Anchorman’, we thought that maybe we should really do this,” Ferrell told Fairfax Media following the Australian premiere of the sequel to the 2004 sleeper hit.
It was understandable then as to why he was decidedly coy and more interested in eating a lozenge than answering, “Are the rumours about an Anchorman 2.5 true”
“There could be a whole other movie. There are 230 jokes that you could put in and into a recut of the first movie.”
Co-star David Koechner, who plays the cowboy hat wearing, catch phrase loving sports reporter Champ Kind, chimed in, “He’s not joking. McKay [director and co-writer Adam McKay] has gone through it. Somebody has counted.”
Such close attention to detail is not surprising.
Carefully lodged between hilarious scenes of a manic Brick Tamland (played by Steve Carell) wooing Kristen Wiig’s character, Chani, and Ron bottle feeding a shark, Anchorman 2 is a subtle slap in the face to the new media and news media especially.
The film is the comedic equivalent of Aaron Sorkin’s TV series, The Newsroom.
Anyone who has ever decreed, “This isn’t news!” while watching or reading ‘the news’ will love the jokes, media bosses – not so much. The cameo list however, which boasts strong performances by Harrison Ford, Tina Fey, Jim Carrey and even Kanye West, will have mass appeal.
