Adam McKay talks Anchorman 2

Part of the reason a sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy has taken so long to come together is due to the film's comedic cast (Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, and co-writer/director Adam McKay, to name a few) all having kept busy over the past eight years, as they became in-demand talents.

That combination of schedule conflicts - and Paramount initially balking at the sequel's potential cost - also means there hasn't been much pre-production work done yet for Ferrell's return as his incorrigible, well-groomed, news-reading alter-ego, Ron Burgundy, in the recently-announced Anchorman 2.

Adam McKay previously spoke out about the extended gap between Anchorman movies, while also teasing some of the wacky shenanigans that Ron and Co. may get up to in the sequel. In a more recent interview with Empire, he elaborated further on how far along in development Anchorman 2 is right now.

"We've done about two per cent! Half a per cent? We've got five pages of story notes and chunks of story. We're holing up writing for the next three months."

In regards to the backdrop/setting for Anchorman 2:

"We know these guys never deal well with change, and the good thing is that there's a big blast of change coming, according to the regular timeline. We're going to be throwing a lot of innovation at them, and they're not going to handle it well... It's right when all the news started changing with the 24-hours news cycle in '78 or '79. All of a sudden, local news stations diversified and had Latino anchors and African-American anchors, and any time you're talking about diversity and the Action News team, that's always fun to deal with."

Passing over the obvious question of why Anchorman 2 would involve an old wooden ship used during the Civil War era (kidding), it sounds as though those longtime rumors that we'll get to see some skewering of the 1980s in the sequel are going to be (at the least) partly accurate after all.

While Ferrell's comedic shtick may not be so fresh nowadays - "thanks" to the plethora of unimpressive Ferrell vehicles (Bewitched, Semi-Pro, Land of the Lost, etc.) released since 2004 - the role of Scotch-loving Burgundy is one many people are excited to see the actor resurrect - as evidenced by the reactions to Ferrell showing up in character on Conan to announce Anchorman 2.

Exploiting the ever-changing face(s) of televised journalism also sounds like a smart way to go with the Anchorman sequel. Who knows, maybe we'll get to see another showdown between the various news channel teams that's even more frenzied (and outrageously funny) than the street gang-style brawl featured in the first film.

We will continue to keep you posted on the status of Anchorman 2 as more information is released.

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Source: Empire