Papa Vinyard here, now here's a little somethin' for ya...
Remember WAKE UP, RON BURGUNDY? There was an entire alternate cut of ANCHORMAN on certain editions of the DVD, which was comprised of alternate version of scenes, and in some cases, completely different plotlines than the ones we saw in the actual film. Most significantly, a subplot involving a Symbionese Liberation Army-esque team of nationals had maybe half an hour of screentime, which I think was jettisoned for the panda bear stuff that ended up as the news team's major story. If they filmed the sequel in the same slapdash, try-everything-and-see-what-works way, it wasn't inconceivable that we'd be getting a similar "companion piece" for the new Ron Burgundy escapade.
Well, Empire quotes Adam McKay talking about the plans for such an "alternate film":
“We did so much improv on this one that we can literally replace every single joke in the movie and put in alt scenes and alt improv runs. I think the editor’s working on it right now, with 250 new jokes. I think it would be really funny to put it in theatres for midnight showings. I know that I personally, if I loved a movie and someone told me that, like if AIRPLANE! had been released with all-new jokes, I’d be like, ‘you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’ I’d see it in a second.”
I think this all depends on whether ANCHORMAN 2 can outperform its predecessor at the box-office, but I'm all for it. While some may think it's sacriligious to compare ANCHORMAN to AIRPLANE!, me and many of the teens I knew when the film came out would watch and quote the film incessantly, nearly on a loop. WAKE UP, RON BURGUNDY was barely advertised, but if considering how voraciously fans would eat up the deleted footage and outtakes on the DVD, I'm sure it could've been much more widely appreciated with the proper exposure. It's not a masterpiece, or even half as good as the actual film, but there's a ton of hilarious gags in there, and even room for cameos from people like Seth Rogen (who barely makes it into the final cut), Justin Long (as Fred Willard's oft-referenced deadbeat son), Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph. I'm sure that some side-splitting stuff just won't find a place in the final cut of ANCHORMAN 2, so this is a great way to both buttress the theatrical grosses of the film, as well as letting the true fans of the franchise revel in Ron Burgundy's cinematic world just a little longer.
ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES looks good on December 20th.
-Vincent Zahedi
”Papa Vinyard”
vincentzahedi@gmail.com
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