Oscar-winning filmmaker Adam McKay says that Step Brothers characters Brennan Huff and Dale Doback would definitely believe in QAnon. The far-right conspiracy theory grew in popularity among some Trump supporters during the former U.S. president’s single term, and McKay feels the absurd beliefs suit Brennan and Dale perfectly.
Though it’s now been over a decade since McKay’s beloved comedy was first released, it has aged well. As the second film that Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly made together, Step Brothers’ box office results weren’t spectacular. Still, it has managed a lasting legacy thanks to Ferrell and Reilly’s fanbase. The film focused on two deadbeats in their forties (Ferrell and Reilly) who still live at home with their single parents. When Brennan’s mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen), marries Dale’s father, Robert (Richard Jenkins), Brennan and Dale have to learn to live together. But of course, this proves easier said than done, and before they can become close, the pair’s relationship is primarily based on spite and sometimes even attempted murder. Once they become friends, the stepbrothers turn living at home with their parents into something out of a 10-year-old’s dream come true.
During a recent New York Times interview with McKay, the Step Brothers filmmaker was asked to confirm whether Brennan and Dale would buy into QAnon. McKay’s answer not only made it clear that the characters would be “way into it,” but he also dropped some further insight into the delusional pair’s politics by pointing out that they would also be big Trump supporters. Briefly painting scenarios in which Brennan and Dale’s QAnon would infiltrate their family life, McKay said:
No question about it. They’d be way into it, and they’d be torturing Jenkins and Steenburgen’s characters with it, and they would eventually be having meetings at the house and somehow QAnon would drift into Jenkins’s work life and the Q Shaman would show up at Jenkins’s workplace. They also would have loved Trump. I don’t want to speak for Ferrell and Reilly, but I think you could safely assume they would agree with that.
The biggest question for Ferrell, Reilly, and Step Brothers' fans is whether or not McKay’s riffing could turn into Step Brothers 2. McKay has teased the possibility of a sequel for years. The acclaimed filmmaker even revealed some basic ideas for how a sequel might play out in 2011. In 2017, Ferrell made it sound as though Step Brothers was the most likely project of his and McKay’s to get the sequel treatment eventually. All this being said, the lukewarm critical response that Anchorman 2 received has made the idea of a Step Brothers 2 a slightly less enticing prospect. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, only that time will tell.
As far as Brennan and Dale go, McKay seems to have hit the nail on the head by saying that he believes the pair would be QAnon devotees. Step Brothers found its audience by allowing Ferrell and Reilly to get as silly and immature with the characters as they could, and oddly enough, conspiracy theories like those espoused by QAnon fit effortlessly into that framework.
Source: The New York Times