'Anchorman 2' trailer: Can Will Ferrell really top the original?

October 23, 2013|By Amy Kaufman

Paul Rudd, left, Will Ferrell, David Koechner and Steve Carell star in "Anchorman… (Paramount Pictures )

Nearly a decade after "Anchorman" became a comedy classic, Will Ferrell and his fellow newsmen are about to try to re-create box office magic with a highly anticipated sequel.

But a new trailer for the Dec 20 release, which hit the web Wednesday, raises the question: Can the 2004 original really be topped?

For years, Paramount Pictures was hesitant to make a sequel to "Anchorman," which grossed a strong $85 million at the box office. In 2011, Ferrell said that he and co-stars Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and David Koechner wanted to make a second film, but the studio said it had "run the numbers and it's not a good fit."

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Just a year later, Ferrell unexpectedly arrived on Conan O'Brien's late-night talk show in March 2012, dressed as his signature character Ron Burgundy to announce a sequel had finally been green-lighted.

Unlike the first film, famously set in classy San Di-ago, "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues" sees Burgundy and his fellow anchors travel to New York City to begin working for a national cable news network called -- what else? -- GNN. The trailer features the same kind of over-the-top, quasi-moronic gags seen in the original: The bus the men are on, which inevitably crashes, is filled with bowling balls and scorpions. Burgundy sneezes directly onto a camera lens.

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There's even a funeral for Carell's clueless Brick, who is, of course, still alive.

But does it all have the potential to go down in one-liner history, forever to be quoted by frat bros? Paramount better hope so, or it might end up trapped in a glass case of emotion.