Will Ferrell isn’t closing the door on Anchorman 3 just yet. The first Anchorman became an instant cult classic when Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his band of imbeciles at a San Diego local news station won audiences over with their infectious stupidity and endlessly quotable dialogue. Anchorman 2 took a slight step back but still provided plenty of the same absurdity that made the original so memorable.
Anchorman 2 earned over $170 million at the worldwide box office, proving that the franchise can still turn a big profit if Ferrell, McKay & Co. wanted to complete a trilogy. It took years for Anchorman 2 to really materialize, and it may take another several years for the third installment to happen - but Ferrell said in a new interview that you can’t rule it out.
Ferrell addressed the possibility of Anchorman 3 when speaking to EW in an interview on Facebook Live, admitting that the idea is not dead but not imminent either. Ferrell is not sure about director Adam McKay, who said back in 2014 that he’s done making sequels, but knows that he and his co-stars could don the mustaches and gaudy suits at any time and still be as hilarious as ever.
“Never say never. At the same time, that’s what’s really fun about those characters — it could be 10 years from now and we can still play those guys and just be older - and even dumber. So that’s the beauty of that. There are no imminent plans to return to that as of yet, because … I can’t speak for Adam [McKay], but for myself, we still have a lot of other original ideas that we’d like to do.”
Ferrell also recently revealed on the Bill Simmons Podcast that the original plot of Anchorman centered around Burgundy asking a pilot to let him fly a plane, only to immediately regret the decision as they crash-land in the mountains and hit another plane containing only orangutans and Chinese throwing stars. Perhaps they could throw that plot into Anchorman 3 in a few years; it’s also likely that Ron Burgundy would finally have to deal with the internet. What’s certain is there’s still demand for another Anchorman movie and if there’s any recent comedy franchise that deserves a full trilogy, it’s this one.
It’s also fair to note that Anchorman 3 would run the risk of delivering increasingly diminished returns, especially if it takes another 10 years to become a reality. It’s rare for the third installment of any trilogy to live up to the same standard set by the originals. But Anchorman 3 would almost certainly be a box office success and the characters are certainly memorable enough to carry at least one more movie.
We’ll keep you updated on Anchorman 3 as more information becomes available.
Source: EW
