Paramount Drops "Anchor"

Despite some promising things being said this past week to MTV News about the possibility of an Anchorman 2 going into production by director Adam McKay, the project seemingly died today.  While doing press for his new flick Date Night, Anchorman co-star Steve Carrel expressed interest in the sequel and Will Ferrell and McKay we're already on the record as saying they were on board to re-visit the Anchorman news team ten years down the road in a sequel set in the 1980's.   It seemed the pieces were finally falling into place despite the very busy schedules of all involved.  The one wild card nobody really factored in was whether or not the studio even wanted a sequel.  This afternoon McKay tweeted "So bummed.  Paramount basically passed on Anchorman 2.  Even after we cut our budget down.  We tried."  The "we cut our budget down" refers to the main cast, Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and Christina Applegate, agreeing to slash their asking prices in order to make re-assembling the cast financially more feasible.   I've posted before about my thoughts of the first film but the good moments it did have we're pretty fantastic, and I would have been interested in a follow up so it's a shame that Paramount has passed.