Filming begins on Anchorman: The Legend Continues this spring, reuniting co-writer/director Adam McKay and the cast of Will Ferrell’s highly-quotable comedy after a nine-year break. The sequel picks up with Ron Burgundy and his news team in the late 1970s, as the good ship ‘Diversity’ arrives once more – this time, in the form of the 24-hours news cycle and innovation of the news industry.
No doubt, Ferrell – along with costars Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner and new addition Kristen Wiig – will be taking potshots at things like ’70s pop culture and contemporary journalism trends (often singing as they do so, apparently). Hence, someone like Rupert Murdoch seems an obvious target for lampooning, right? Well, that appears to be the plan, anyway.
AICN attended the preview for Song for Marion (a.k.a. Unfinished Song) featuring Terence Stamp, the actor famous for playing General Zod in Superman II; not to mention, appearing in Wall Street, Alien Nation, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, among other films over the last three decades (he also voiced Jor-El on Smallville).
There, Stamp broached a wide range of topic ranging from personal to professional – including, his abandoned script for a “loose” sequel to Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey – when he dropped the following noteworthy tidbit:
When asked what’s next for him, he said Will Ferrell’s people had reached out to see if he would be interested in playing a Rupert Murdoch-type figure in Ferrell’s next film. This would be ANCHORMAN 2 presumably? Stamp said he would love to take part in it, but he’s not yet been officially offered the part.
McKay and Ferrell have teamed for irreverent shenanigans involving NASCAR culture (Talladega Nights: The Ballard of Ricky Bobby) and buddy cop movies (The Other Guys), while Ferrell has collaborated with other directors to take potshots at things like modern politics (The Campaign) and westerns in recent years (Casa de mi Padre). However, nothing the pair has done, either together or separately, has inspired the devotion fans have for Anchorman.
We’re hoping the sequel can recapture the magic of its predecessor and maybe even improve on the sketch-comedy style. True, Anchorman 2 doesn’t have that element of surprise like the original, nor is Ferrell’s absurd humor approach fresh or hard to come by nowadays. However, this belated followup is moving in the right direction, especially if it brings Stamp aboard as a straight-man for the Anchorman gang (see: his related work in comedies like Bowfinger and Get Smart).
Anchorman: The Legend Continues arrives on December 20th, 2013.
–
