Anytime it’s taken the better part of a decade to make a sequel to a film, it is at lastly somewhat likely that the sequel is going to suck. It’s no one’s fault, per se, but it’s just one of those things. Maybe it’s hard to go back to something after that long. Maybe it’s hard to recapture whatever made the thing special in the first place.
That will not be the case with “Anchorman 2.”
At this point, I’ve seen enough of the film to be very confident that they have recaptured the exact voice that made the first “Anchorman” so much fun. I find myself frequently amazed at how much of an institution the first film is at this point considering the response when it was released. People seemed to enjoy it, but there was no immediate sense that it was going to turn into a phenomenon that people quote constantly, or that it was going to eventually become part of the pop culture lexicon. I love that the film finally found its audience, and that there is so much passion for it now.
The people working on the film seem to have taken the right approach to things, working first to make themselves laugh, and they shot a ton of footage for this one. They are still hard at work pinning down the final cut of the movie, and I’d say that you shouldn’t get too attached to anything you see in the trailers, because they may well use alternate takes or deleted jokes just so they can avoid giving away everything in the actual film.
Studios can only do extra-long trailers a few times a year per the rules of the MPAA, and it’s obvious Paramount thinks this is their big movie of the year. This new trailer is a full 2:38, and it’s packed with new material.
That Winnebego gag is something else, and the trailer gives you a pretty clear glimpse of just how hard it is for Ron Burgundy and his team to adjust to the ’80s and changing attitudes. They had a hard enough time with a woman wanting to be an anchor in the first film, but in this one, race and sexuality both also enter into the equation, and they may not be able to handle all the changes.
And in case you missed it, here’s my interview with Harrison Ford about his role in the film. It’s hard to tell which of us is happier here.
I can’t wait for this one. December 25th cannot get here fast enough.