ANCHORMAN Sequel Inches Closer To Reality

Is that much talked about Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy ever going to happen? In the ironic wake of having seen Anchorman 2 showing up on a couple of “movies that are never going to happen” lists on other websites recently, it’s looking better than it has in a while that the sequel will be going before cameras early next year.

Anchorman‘s director Adam McKay spoke with MTV’s Movie Blog, telling them that while some of the holdup in getting a sequel moving has been financial, it hasn’t been negotiations over salaries for the cast.

It’s a tricky movie because everyone went and did really well after it, so everyone’s prices went up and everyone’s time got a little more valuable. But at the same time, graciously, Steve and Paul and everyone agreed to cut their price to come and do [the sequel], which you don’t see very often in Hollywood — and cut their price substantially. But even with that, it’s just a budgetary thing with Paramount in terms of how much they’ll give us to make it.

The first Anchorman was made for just $26 million and sold $85 million in tickets at theaters and found a further audience thanks to home video. McKay thinks that a second film could be even more successful for the studio.

Austin Powers didn’t make a ton of movie in its first go-round and then it caught fire in the next one. We’re hoping they’ll look more at that sort of projection.

Of course, the second (and third) Austin Powers flicks repeated a lot of the jokes found in the first film, but it sounds like instead of finding more things to do in the 1970s, a second Anchorman film will move the channel 4 news team of Will Farrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and David Koechner in to the next decade.

That’s loosely what the idea is. [The ’80s angle is] more the frame of it. We have this other, bigger, crazier idea that’s really more what it’s about, which I can’t say. Our thinking was there’s just no way the second one is going to be as good as the first, because the first one is the first one. So our idea is if we’re going to do a second one, we better go for it and try some insane stuff and we’ll be enjoying it and that way it can’t be half bad.

An Anchorman sequel seems like a no-brainer to me. The cast had a great chemistry, and it is evident that the film was a labor of love for everyone involved. So much so that in addition to the DVD release, a second disc entitled Anchorman: Wake-Up Ron Burgundy was cobbled together from out-takes and storylines cutout from the finished film. Best Buy also released an exclusive bonus disc that contained a further 30 minutes of cut footage. If the cast is willing to take paycuts, they’re not making the movie as a quick payday. If Paramount were to give the go-ahead for Anchorman 2, I expect that they will wok just as hard.