News Team, Assemble!

Yesterday Will Ferrell popped by the taping of "Conan" in character as Ron Burgundy to announce that a sequel to the 2004 smash "Anchorman" has finally been greenlit and the film will be coming out sometime next year. Now, on the surface this pleases me greatly, because "Anchorman" is solidly in the top-10 on my personal list of favorite films. However, I'm not as happy as I probably should be at this news, simply because I have been down this road often enough to know not to get my hopes up. I have been excited for sequels quite a few times only to be let down when I finally see it and discover it to be nothing more than the exact same movie from the last time around with the same recycled jokes but a few more celebrity cameos. Sometimes the first movie was just so well done it should just be left alone. Honestly, in the history of movie making you can count the number of great sequels on one hand, which is why doing them is always a little dangerous. Much like a musician who goes back on tour to support a new album, mixing in the new stuff with the greatest hits can be a very delicate balancing act. But unlike a musician where half the crowd is there just to hear the hits, no one want to go see a sequel and hear all the same old jokes.

The thing is, I think Will Ferrell knows this better than anyone. If you look at his IMDB page you will notice that Ferrell has never made a sequel out of any of his movies. I'm sure part of this comes from his days on "Saturday Night Live" where he was constantly changing up characters. I mean, it is one thing to play the same character a few times a month for five minutes at a time, but it is entirely another to play the same character for months and months on end. Once you get into a rhythm of not playing the same characters for long stretches of time it can be a hard habit to break. In fact, the closest Ferrell has come to repeating himself on the big screen is appearing in two "Austin Powers" films as the same guy. There must be something else to it, because I'm sure studio executives were desperate to do a second "Old School" movie, so you have to wonder if they either couldn't come up with a good script, couldn't agree on money or if the band simply didn't want to get back together because they thought there was nothing more to do with those characters.

I'm also slightly worried because one of the things which made the first "Anchorman" so great was that it came out of nowhere. Much like the first "Austin Powers" movie, it didn't cost much to make and didn't get much in the way of publicity, only taking off once it was already in the theaters through good word-of-mouth reviews. But, you know that isn't going to happen this time around. They are going to promote the hell out of this movie for months before it finally premieres. We're going to see Ron Burgundy at every turn and I think you guys know my policy regarding movie promotions. (Quick summary: the more places I see the stars of the film, the more convince I am the movie is going to suck.) All that is going to do is drive up the expectations, which also doesn't help. Of course, all of this kind of a moot point, because you know I'm still going to see the sequel the day it opens, even if it looks terrible. The good news for you is that I have a really good memory for movie quotes so if you think it could be awful I will be able to act the whole film out for you and you can judge for yourself.

Still, even as nervous as I am that a sequel has no chance to be as good as the original, I can be comforted by the knowledge that at least the script is in good hands, as it is being done by the same people who penned the original. There were a lot of ways they could have gone instead, like finding all new people and doing a straight-to-DVD prequel which would have been seen by 200 people, but thankfully that didn't happen. I'm not sure if the entire crew from the original is returning (though I'm pretty sure most of them would be happy to be back), but I think enough of them will be there to make it work. Not that I want to put down guys like Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, but as long as Ferrell is back that is the one who really counts. It would be like seeing the Bulls in the years after Jordan first retired - yes, they were still a good basketball team, but it just wasn't the same. As long as Will is there it should still have a few really funny parts. If it doesn't, I'm sure Ferrell will be willing to give me some money out of his wallet and that should help ease the pain.