Will Ferrell is very well known for being funny, cracking jokes and that sort of business, so we’ll preface this story by saying that there is a -chance- he might be taking the piss, but oh boy, if this is true, then it’s WILD.
In a recent interview with The Ringer, the Anchorman star revealed that the original script for the beloved comedy was very different from the version we ended up seeing.
If he can be believed – and frankly, we would love nothing more than to believe him – the original version was a survival story centred around a horrific plane crash in the mountains, featuring killer monkeys. Ferrell said:
“The first version of Anchorman is basically the movie Alive, where the year is 1976, and we are flying to Philadelphia, and all the newsmen from around the country are flying in to have some big convention. Ron convinces the pilot that he knows how to fly the charter jet, and he immediately crash-lands it in the mountains. And it’s just the story of them surviving and trying to get off the mountainside.”
Well, yes, that certainly sounds like something Ron Burgundy would do. The actor continued:
“They clipped a cargo plane, and the cargo plane crashed as well, close to them, and it was carrying only boxes of orangutans and Chinese throwing stars. So throughout the movie we’re being stalked by orangutans who are killing, one by one, the team off with throwing stars. And Veronica Corningstone keeps saying things like, ‘Guys, I know if we just head down we’ll hit civilisation.’ And we keep telling her, ‘Wrong.’ She doesn’t know what we’re talking about. So that was the first version of the movie”
That would frankly be a dynamite idea for a third Anchorman film, however, director Adam McKay says that if the team ever did another one, it would likely feature Ron Burgundy embedded in the Gulf War and screaming hysterically at dial-up modems.
Source: New York Times.
Photo: Supplied.
