Adam McKay Describes Scrapped TALLADEGA NIGHTS 2 Idea and Says He's Totally Open to Working With Will Ferrell After Their Falling Out
Will Ferrell and his old writing partner Adam McKay are responsible for some of the funniest comedies of the 2000s. They hit it out of the park over and over with classics like Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, but the pair unfortunately had a falling out back in 2019 and their production company Gary Sanchez was disbanded.
McKay has previously talked about the rift, saying that Ferrell first became disenfranchised with their partnership under the strain of producing. Then the final blow to their relationship came when McKay gave the role of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in the HBO series Winning Time to John C. Reilly behind Ferrell’s back.
The role was originally meant for Ferrell, and when Reilly told him he was cast, the Elf star was very hurt that McKay hadn’t been up front with him. After the split, McKay assumed that they would reunite after a cooling down period, but after a 25 year friendship and collaboration, it’s been six years since they’ve spoken.
McKay said of Ferrell in a recent interview with Business Insider, “I totally have been open to the idea. We always got along great, we were tremendous creative partners.”
The outlet brought up the film Talladega Nights, which starred Ferrell as the bumbling NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby. The movie is returning to theaters to celebrate its 20th anniversary milestone with showtimes on June 28, June 30 and July 1. McKay revealed to the publication that a Talladega Nights sequel was discussed after the original’s success, but it never developed beyond the story stage.
“We did have an idea for ‘Talladega Nights 2.’ It was that Ricky Bobby was going to hook up with an F1 team, and he was going to race in Denmark or the Netherlands and feel like he’s in a communist country because they have nationalized healthcare,” McKay said.
“So, along with struggling with how fast those F1 cars go, he would have clashed with far-left-leaning Europe compared to America. The only reason we didn’t do it was it’s a lot of work to shoot race car stuff,” the director added.
“The reason we went and did ‘Step Brothers’ next was we felt like, can we just go do comedy in a house? We were tired after ‘Talladega Nights.’ It never got to the point where we wrote a treatment.”
Hopefully the friends are able to work things out and mend their friendship, if that’s what’s meant to be. It doesn’t sound like we will ever see a Talladega Nights 2, but it sounds like it would have been funny.
via: Variety