Adam McKay is talking about the upcoming sequel to Anchorman, and if he's not using generous amounts of hyperbole, this movie might be as epic as Cloud Atlas, which I heard was pretty epic. But here's what we can take away from his latest interview with The Playlist: Anchorman: The Legend Continues will have songs in it, it will deal with new media and the 24-hour news cycle, and basically every single person in comedy will have speaking parts. The bad news: it killed a rap album inspired by Step Brothers that probably had something about boats and hoes on it. Bummer.
According to McKay, who has written and directed several movies with Will Ferrell, Paramount wasn't exactly into the idea of Anchorman 2, despite its ongoing appeal. At least not until something else fell through. McKay was barely even planning a sequel to the 2004 hit — instead, he was writing a sequel to 2008's Step Brothers plus an accompanying rap album featuring the efforts of Lukash Gottwald, a music producer who had worked with the likes of Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Nicki Minaj.
"[W]e actually wrote four or five raps, roughs of them, and were going to release the 'Step Brothers' rap album," McKay said. "And I can't remember what happened, but right in the middle of it we suddenly got super busy and everyone had to walk away and it's never been revived. We actually were halfway through writing it and Lukash was giving us beats, and we were going to do it."
But despite the album going south, Step Brothers 2 might still be on the horizon: "It all depends on how the movie ages. If in five years people still give a shit, maybe we'd do it."
The silver lining is, of course, another Anchorman movie. Currently in the rewriting phase, McKay is talking up some huge, live musical numbers, left over from a rejected attempt to bring Anchorman to the stage (for a six-month run that would lead into another movie). He's also revealing (in another part of the interview) what the focus of the sequel will be: the present-day news cycle.
"…I mean what is this 24 hours news, and this wall of white noise information, has it really been good for our country? … It's just funny that Americans have to contend with 2000 channels, and 60 different specific news sources, and the confusion that it creates, and the junk that we get to see is hilarious. That's what we're always kinda looking for, what's the point of view that's got life to it and plays."
That's pretty interesting, considering how the first movie clearly took place in the 1970s, and the sequel will fast forward to the present. Will Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 news team age? Will they find a time machine? Given the irreverent nature of Adam McKay movies, the issue could be ignored altogether.
What is for sure is a "murderer's row" of comedians on board for bit parts and random appearances, similar to how everyone funny in Hollywood showed up for the huge street fight between rival news teams in the first movie. Except this time — more and bigger everything! Sounds like something Ron Burgundy would find as appealing as rich mahogany.
(via /Film)
