If you know anything about Team Empire, you know that our love for Anchorman and its endless quoteability is nearly religious in its fervour. So count us as overjoyed to learn – from director Adam McKay, no less – that a sequel with the whole original team involved is closer to happening than ever.
MTV talked to McKay, who went over what we already know about the difficulties in getting the sequel made: to whit, the cast are all now very busy and no longer work for the likes of the free cheese offered on the set of the first film.
That said, everyone is more than willing to jump back in: "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 substantially to come and do the sequel, which you don't see very often in Hollywood."
Good news so far. The question becomes, then, what’s holding the film back? Turns out it's those usual budgetary worries, based on Anchorman's lukewarm box office.
McKay has apparently been talking to the studio, trying to convince the executives to take a chance on the sequel, comparing it to a comedy franchise that took a while to heat up at the box office. “Austin Powers didn't make a ton of movie in its first go-round and then it caught fire in the next one," he says. "We're hoping they'll look more at that sort of projection."
And if they do get the nod, the plan is purportedly to finish up a script by later this year and kick off shooting in February 2011. So what’s the big idea? Previous chatter has pointed to a 1980s setting. “That's loosely what the idea is. It’s 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."
Given some of the crazy stuff cut contemplated for the original (including an Alive-style plane crash sequence), we can’t wait to find out what their definition of “insane” might mean.
Oh, and we hear from other sources that the real salary hold-ups are the Octagon and Doctor Kenneth Noisewater. Though James Westfall will apparently work cheap.