| Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Adam McKay |
| Produced by | Judd Apatow |
| Written by | Will Ferrell Adam McKay |
| Narrated by | Bill Kurtis |
| Starring | Will Ferrell Christina Applegate Paul Rudd David Koechner Steve Carell Fred Willard |
| Music by | Alex Wurman |
| Cinematography | Thomas E. Ackerman |
| Editing by | Brent White |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks |
| Release date(s) | July 9, 2004 |
| Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $26 million |
| Box office | $90,336,354 |
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, or simply Anchorman, is a 2004 American comedy film, directed by Adam McKay and starring Will Ferrell. The film, which was also written by Ferrell and McKay, is a tongue-in-cheek take on the culture of the 1970s, particularly the then-new Action News format. It portrays a San Diego TV station where Ferrell's title character clashes with his new female counterpart (Christina Applegate). This film is number 100 on Bravo's 100 funniest movies, and 113 on Empire's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.
The film made $28.4 million in its opening weekend, and $89.3 million worldwide in its total theatrical run. A companion film assembled from outtakes and abandoned subplots, titled Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, was released straight-to-DVD in late 2004. In May 2008, it was confirmed that a sequel to Anchorman was in the planning stages,[1] but in April 2010, it was announced that the sequel had been scrapped.[2]
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In 1975 San Diego, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is the famous and successful anchorman for KVWN-TV Channel 4 Evening News. He works alongside his friends on the news team: fashion-oriented lead field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), sportscaster Champion "Champ" Kind (David Koechner), and mentally retarded chief meteorologist Brick Tamland (Steve Carell). The team is notified by their boss, Ed Harken (Fred Willard), that their station has maintained its long-held status as the highest-rated news program in San Diego, leading them to throw a wild party. While getting drunk, Ron sees an attractive blond woman and immediately tries to hit on her. After an awkward, failed pick-up attempt, the woman leaves.
The next day, Ed informs the team that he has been forced by the network to hire Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), a female news reporter from Asheville, North Carolina – and the same woman Ron had tried to pick up the night before. The news team attempts to seduce Veronica using various inept, arrogant and sexist methods, all of which backfire. Ron ends up asking her out under the guise of helping out a new co-worker, which she accepts. During their date, Ron woos Veronica by playing jazz flute (actually played by Los Angeles based musician, Katisse Buckingham) in his friend Tino's (Fred Armisen) club. Veronica goes against her policy of not dating co-workers and sleeps with Ron. The next day, despite agreeing with Veronica to keep the relationship discreet, Ron tells the entire news room that he and Veronica are in a sexual relationship (and later announces it on the air).
The next day when Ron is on his way to the station, he throws a burrito out his car window, accidentally hitting a motorcyclist (Jack Black) in the head, causing him to crash. In a fit of rage, the biker retaliates by punting Ron's dog, Baxter, off a bridge. A distressed and incoherent Ron calls Brian from a pay phone and tells him what happened. Since Ron is now late, Brian frantically tells him to come to the station because Veronica is about to take his place. Despite Ron's efforts to arrive early, Veronica goes on air. After Ron arrives, he has an argument with Veronica about the situation and they break up. The next day, Veronica is made co-anchor, much to the entire news team's disgust. The co-anchors soon become fierce rivals and argue with each other both on and off the air.
One day while feeling down on themselves, the News team decides to buy new suits. However on the way to the suit shop Brick, who was leading the way, gets them lost ending up in a shady part of town. They are then confronted by Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughan) and the evening news team. Tired of their rudeness and petty anger, Ron challenges them to a fight. All armed with crude weapons the two teams are about to fight when they are joined by Channel 2 news team with lead anchor Frank Vitchard (Luke Wilson), the public news team and their lead anchor (Tim Robbins), and the Spanish language news with lead anchor Arturo Mendez (Ben Stiller). A full on melee ensues between the five teams until they all flee when police sirens are heard.
While in a restaurant celebrating Veronica's success, one of Veronica's co-workers tells her that Ron will read anything that is written on the teleprompter. Later, Veronica sneaks into the station and changes the words in Ron's teleprompter. The next day, instead of Ron saying his signature "You stay classy, San Diego!" closure, Ron ends the broadcast with, "Go fuck yourself, San Diego!" Everyone in the studio, except Ron, is speechless. An angry mob gathers outside the studio and Ed must fire Ron. Veronica sees that she has gone too far and attempts to apologize, but Ron angrily dismisses her while being led through the mob by security, yelling at her that she had "reduced him to rubble".
Three months later Ron is unemployed, friendless, hated by the city and is a slovenly drunk. In this time Veronica has become very famous, but is hated by her male coworkers for sabotaging Ron; Ed told Champ, Brick, and Brian not to talk to Ron or he will fire them if they do. When it is announced that Ling-Wong the panda is about to give birth, all the San Diego news teams head to the zoo to cover the story. In an attempt to sabotage her, the public news anchor pushes Veronica into a Kodiak bear enclosure. When Ed cannot find Veronica, he calls the bar where Ron spends most of his time and reluctantly asks him to return. Ron then summons the rest of his team by blowing the "News Horn", despite the fact that they were all standing a foot away playing pool. Baxter, who has miraculously survived, hears this call and follows the voice to find Ron. Once at the zoo, Ron jumps into the bear pen to save Veronica, with everyone else at the zoo watching. The Channel 4 news team then jumps in to help Ron. Just as the leader of the bears is about to rip Ron and Veronica apart, Baxter shows up and convinces the bear to let them live by mentioning that he is a friend of the bear's cousin, whom he met in the wild.
After Ron and Veronica reconcile, it is shown that in years to come, Brian becomes the host of a Fox reality show named Intercourse Island, Brick is George W. Bush's top political adviser, Champ is a commentator for the NFL before he was fired for sexually harassing Terry Bradshaw, and Ron and Veronica are co-anchors for the CNN-esque World News Center, taking over after the narrator (real news anchor Bill Kurtis) retires.
The opening and closing scenes are narrated by veteran Chicago CBS (WBBM-TV) news anchor Bill Kurtis. Bill Kurtis, who currently hosts A&E's American Justice and Cold Case Files, is the winner of twenty Emmys.
Although Anchorman is set in San Diego, the real San Diego appears only in brief aerial shots – modern shots that include many downtown buildings not yet built in the 1970s. According to the official production notes and "making of" documentary (both included on the DVD), Anchorman was actually filmed in Los Angeles, Glendale, and Long Beach on sets which were dressed to look like San Diego in the 1970s. Notably, Los Angeles, Glendale, and Long Beach are in the studio zone, while San Diego is not.
Anchorman was released on July 9, 2004 in 3,091 theaters and grossed US$ $28.4 million in its opening weekend. It went on to gross $85.3 million in North America and $5.3 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $89.3 million, well above its $26 million budget.[3]
The film was generally well-received by critics with a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 63 metascore at Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Most of the time... Anchorman works, and a lot of the time it's very funny".[4] Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers also gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "If you sense the presence of recycled jokes from Animal House onward, you'd be right. But you'd be wrong to discount the comic rapport Ferrell has with his cohorts, notably the priceless Fred Willard as the harried station manager".[5] In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "C+" rating and wrote, "Yet for a comedy set during the formative era of happy-talk news, Anchorman doesn't do enough to tweak the on-camera phoniness of dum-dum local journalism".[6] USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Claudia Puig wrote, "That he can make his anchorman chauvinistic, deluded and ridiculous but still manage to give him some humanity is testimony to Ferrell's comic talents".[7] In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, "Tightly directed by newcomer Adam McKay, a former head writer on Saturday Night Live who cooked up the screenplay with Ferrell, Anchorman never reaches the sublime heights of that modern comedy classic There's Something About Mary. Big deal — it's a hoot nonetheless and the scaled-down aspirations seem smart".[8]
Empire magazine ranked Ron Burgundy #26 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.[9] Empire also ranked Anchorman at number 113 in their poll of the 500 Greatest Films Ever. Entertainment Weekly ranked Burgundy #40 in their "The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years" poll and Ferrell said, "He is my favorite character I've played, if I have to choose one ... Looking back, that makes it the most satisfying thing I've ever done".[10]
In the unrated version of Anchorman, there are four minutes worth of additional scenes that were not shown in the theaters to secure the PG-13 rating instead of an R rating. Some of these found their way into Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie. They are:
The film, Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, was released straight to DVD in 2004, which includes alternate scenes containing much of the original plot.[11]
In May 2008, McKay said that he and Will Ferrell have talked about wanting to do an Anchorman sequel.[1] Steve Carell told MTV he would reprise his role as Brick Tamland if the opportunity arose.[12] In an interview with ITV1's London Tonight in August 2008, Ferrell confirmed plans for a sequel but indicated it could take some time to happen.
On March 23, 2010, Ferrell said it was unlikely that a sequel would be made, telling Zoo Magazine that getting the cast together would be too difficult. The following month, McKay said the studio had turned down a proposal for a sequel, even after McKay had told them Ferrell, Carell and Rudd would take pay cuts.[13]
On September 8, 2010, director Adam McKay revealed to Collider.com that massive outcry from fans has convinced Paramount to reconsider making the sequel. It is not known when Paramount will make their final decision on whether or not to make the sequel.
On May 3, 2011, Will Ferrell publicly stated that Paramount, which owns the rights to Anchorman, had nixed the idea of a sequel, stating "We've run the numbers and it's not a good fit."[14]
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