{"id":892559,"date":"2026-06-25T20:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T20:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/892559\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T20:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T20:42:14","slug":"adam-mckay-on-talladega-nights-2-and-will-ferrell-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/892559\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam McKay on Talladega Nights 2 and Will Ferrell Split"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAdam McKay<\/a> said in a new interview with Business Insider<\/a> that he is \u201ctotally open to the idea\u201d of working with Will Ferrell<\/a> again. The duo behind some of the most beloved comedies of the 2000s (\u201cAnchorman,\u201d \u201cTalladega Nights<\/a>,\u201d \u201cStep Brothers\u201d) infamously split <\/a>in 2019 and dissolved their creative partnership, which included the Gary Sanchez production banner they founded in 2006.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI totally have been open to the idea. We always got along great, we were tremendous creative partners,\u201d McKay said of his former collaborator. \u201cThe only thing that caused acrimony between us was when we decided to end our production company, Gary Sanchez. And I know it was reported one way or the other, but that was really it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a shame because we had a great creative partnership,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think both of us underestimated the complications that go with not just having a company, but a very successful company. We had it for a long time and did a lot of cool projects. And Ferrell said it publicly, he was never someone who wanted to produce, so he was always half in and half out, but then he would love it and be proud of the company, but by the end, he wanted to move on. It had become too much extra work; it was never his passion. I was really the one who wanted to produce, but a movie star\u2019s life is very different than a writer-director\u2019s life. So we split up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFerrell told\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>\u00a0in October 2021 that \u201cbandwidth\u201d was the reason for his split from McKay, pointing to McKay\u2019s increased producing responsibilities. The actor said at the time: \u201cAdam was like, \u2018I want to do this, and this, and this,\u2019 he wanted growth and a sphere of influence, and I was just like, \u2018I don\u2019t know, that sounds like a lot that I have to keep track of.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut McKay told a different story to Vanity Fair <\/a>a month later. He said the final blow to his relationship with Ferrell was McKay\u2019s decision to cast John C. Reilly over Ferrell as Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in the HBO series \u201cWinning Time.\u201d Ferrell was supposed to star in the show, but McKay hired Reilly behind Ferrell\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI should have called him and I didn\u2019t,\u201d McKay said at the time. \u201cAnd Reilly did, of course, because Reilly, he\u2019s a stand-up guy\u2026I fucked up on how I handled that. It\u2019s the old thing of keep your side of the street clean. I should have just done everything by the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcKay then revealed that the last time he spoke to Ferrell was the phone conversation they had talking about ending their production company. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, I mean, we\u2019re splitting up the company.\u2019 And he basically was like, \u2018Yeah, we are,\u2019 and basically was like, \u2018Have a good life.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Fuck, Ferrell\u2019s never going to talk to me again.\u2019 So it ended not well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn my head, I was like, \u2018We\u2019ll let all this blow over. Six months to a year, we\u2019ll sit down, we\u2019ll laugh about it and go, It\u2019s all business junk, who gives a shit? We worked together for 25 years. Are we really going to let this go away?\u2019 [But Ferrell] took it as a way deeper hurt than I ever imagined and I tried to reach out to him, and I reminded him of some slights that were thrown my way that were never apologized for,\u201d McKay added.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcKay spoke to Business Insider<\/a> to mark the 20th anniversary of \u201cTalladega Nights,\u201d which starred Ferrell as the bumbling NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby. The movie is returning to theaters to celebrate the milestone with showtimes on June 28, June 30 and July 1.\u00a0McKay revealed to the publication that a \u201cTalladega Nights\u201d sequel was discussed after the original\u2019s success, but it never developed beyond the story stage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe did have an idea for \u2018Talladega Nights 2.\u2019 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\u2019s in a communist country because they have nationalized healthcare,\u201d McKay said. \u201cSo, along with struggling with how fast those F1 cars go, he would have clashed with far-left-leaning Europe compared to America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe only reason we didn\u2019t do it was it\u2019s a lot of work to shoot race car stuff,\u201d the director added. \u201cThe reason we went and did \u2018Step Brothers\u2019 next was we felt like, can we just go do comedy in a house? We were tired after \u2018Talladega Nights.\u2019 It never got to the point where we wrote a treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHead over to Business Insider\u2019s website<\/a> to read McKay\u2019s interview in its entirety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam McKay said in a new interview with Business Insider that he is \u201ctotally open to the idea\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":892560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[270693,171,53,361829,67,132,68,14086],"class_list":["post-892559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-adam-mckay","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-talladega-nights","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-will-ferrell"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116812693544707885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}