After Anchorman director Adam McKay sent out a cryptic tweet last week promising a “treat” before airings of Sacha Baron Cohen‘s The Dictator, Ron Burgundy — the world-class news anchor, ladies’ man, jazz flute player and owner of many leather-bound books — took to his own Twitter account yesterday to reveal McKay’s “treat” clue and announce that a teaser trailer of the sequel to his groundbreaking, critically-acclaimed, inspirational, box office-demolishing comedy will debut this week. This is kind of a big deal.
Dont get Twirter. Anchorman2 teaser w Dictator tom night. Dont know what a teaser is. World is crazy? Having a scotch. twitter.com/RonBurgundy/st…
— Ron Burgundy (@RonBurgundy) May 14, 2012
OK, so maybe Anchorman didn’t demolish any box offices or break any ground. But it was a funny movie, and when star Will Ferrell announced back in March that a deal had finally been reached for a sequel, fans of the franchise couldn’t wait to see more of the SNL alum’s famous news-reading character.
Released in 2004, Anchorman revolved around the fictional KVWN news team — headed by lead anchor and Scotch-swilling narcissist Burgundy — and satirized the action news format new to America in the 1970s. The film also starred Paul Rudd, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell and David Koechner.
The teaser trailer will debut before midnight airings of The Dictator on the film’s opening night. It is unclear whether subsequent airings will also have the Anchorman 2 teaser.
In an interview with Salon last month, McKay explained that the nine-year delay between the original and the forthcoming sequel was due to the studio’s initial lack of interest.
“We went to the studio and they kind of weren’t into it initially. They said the original one made pretty good money, but for what it made we’ll give you this and this, and it was a very low budget. We would have all been working for free to do it,” he said. “They had said basically no three times and we had given up and thought all right, let’s go do another movie. [...] And just at the last second I said, go check in with them again and see if it’s just 100 percent dead. And, crazy luck, a movie had fallen through for them, their view on it had kind of changed and that was it.”
McKay was tight-lipped about the sequel’s plot, but did offer two very small clues: “Custody battle” and “bowling for dollars.” No idea what, exactly, either of those things entail, but we can probably rest assured that they’ll be hilariously stupid.
Most of the principal castmembers are expected to return for the sequel.
Let’s just hope Ron’s voice can still make a wolverine purr. The film’s success hinges on it.
The Dictator hits US and UK theatres May 16. Anchorman 2 will likely hit theaters in 2013.
[Props: NYP]
[...] protagonist of 2004 film Anchorman and the man who built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and braun, revealed via his Twitter account yesterday that the official teaser trailer for the film’s sequel would debut ahead of the first [...]