Trivia / Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

• Career Resurrection: Put Will Ferrell back on the map in live action films after the failure of Land of the Lost four years prior (although Megamind and The Other Guys did help him regain some of his star power).
• Channel Hop: Production company hop, in this case: the first film was made by DreamWorks SKG, this one is from Paramount. Paramount acquired Dreamworks in 2006, but despite selling it off later, they kept the pre-2012 DW library and ancillary rights, including sequels.
• Corpsing: Christina Applegate can clearly be seen losing her shit just before each camera angle switch in the opening screaming scene.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The film was originally conceived as a musical.
• One for the Money; One for the Art: Adam McKay agreed to make the sequel so that Paramount would let him make The Big Short.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Adam McKay's youngest daughter Pearl cameos as a girl jeering Ron during a dolphin show at SeaWorld.
  • Will Ferrell's sons Axel, Magnus and Mattias Ferrell also appear in the scene as background kids.
• Saved from Development Hell: The film had been in the works for several years, but stalled, even with Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, and Steve Carell taking pay cuts to keep the budget down. Paramount Pictures didn't like the numbers and didn't agree to a sequel initially. However, the studio later decided to greenlight the sequel.
• Sequel Gap: The film came out nine years after the original.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A role was offered to Jennifer Lawrence, but she had to decline, due to scheduling conflicts.
  • Meryl Streep was rumored to have a role.
  • Vince Vaughn hinted at the possible appearance of Wes Mantooth's mother, Dorothy, who was mentioned in the first film. He expressed interest in Angela Lansbury playing the role.
  • The sequel was originally going to involve the news team becoming stranded on an island after a plane crash and having to fight off a hoard of shuriken-wielding orangutans. Another idea involved the news team battling grizzly bears.
• You Look Familiar: Amy Poehler appears as one of the Entertainment Newscasters in the climactic battle. She previously played an unrelated character in Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie.

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