Great Odin’s raven! Reports that life is over for the further adventures of the Channel 4 news team are evidently premature. Huh, say again? Last week “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” director Adam McKay used twitter as a pulpit to announce that a proposed “Anchorman 2” sequel had been scuttled because Paramount, “basically passed…. Even after we cut our budget down. We tried.”
But Deadline is reporting there still might be life in the cards for the San Diego-based news team. The issue is apparently the budget. Evidently Paramount is eager to make a sequel to “Anchorman” and “Zoolander” — which Ben Stiller also suggested this weekend might be dead — but at a price. They apparently don’t want to make either sequel for over $40 million (the new price tag for anything that isn’t a summer tentpole slamdunk) and apparently that means the “Anchorman 2” budget — pared down to about $70 million by McKay and Will Ferrell, and presumably Judd Apatow who was a producer on the first film — needs to come down by another $30 million. That’s a huge number and that’s not easy (presumably the “Zoolander 2” team feel the same way, this number is far too small).
While Deadline suggests that’s a lifeline. We’re thinking McKay already said his piece on Twitter. They brought the budget down, Paramount passed, that’s life. $40 million dollars for “Anchorman 2” is almost an insult considering the first film cost $26 million to make, grossed $85 million domestically and surely earned shit tons more on DVD (plus Paramount just gave Sacha Baron Cohen the sweetest deal recently). Plus, it’s a sequel and McKay and co. surely would like to up the ante. Plus, Will Ferrell and Steve Carell are huge stars now and aren’t cheap. Sure, they’re already taking paycuts, but at $40 million would the script need to be bare bones again? Would they or McKay even go for that?
Likely not. Deadline says the “Anchorman 2” team won’t even start writing a script until a $70 million dollar budget is approved which likely leaves everyone at a stalemate.
As McKay tweeted out last week after the initial announcement, “We can’t do Anchorman 2 at another studio. Paramount owns it.” However, eventually it could go into turnaround and Paramount already let “Twilight” and “John Carter of Mars” slip through their fingers, and aren’t likely eager for a repeat of what seems like very dumb decisions.
Ok, so the status: “Anchorman 2” is not dead yet, but both parties are probably going to wait for the other to make a move first before anything happens and we’re guessing it’ll have to be Paramount that approves a higher budget or we’ll be waiting in limbo. It’s not like the rest of the cast and filmmakers don’t have myriad other options.