We’re in a glass case of emotion over this.
Will Ferrell has just revealed that the original plot of his hit film Anchorman was very different to how the film ended up.
He gave a rundown of the initial script for the film on the The Bill Simmons Podcast.
“The first version of Anchorman is basically the movie Alive, where the year is 1976, and we are flying to Philadelphia, and all the newsmen from around the country are flying in to have some big convention.”
“Ron convinces the pilot that he knows how to fly the charter jet, and he immediately crash-lands it in the mountains. And it’s just the story of them surviving and trying to get off the mountainside.
“They clipped a cargo plane, and the cargo plane crashed as well, close to them, and it was carrying only boxes of orang-utans and Chinese throwing stars. So throughout the movie we’re being stalked by orang-utans who are killing, one by one, the team off with throwing stars. And Veronica Corningstone keeps saying things like, ‘Guys, I know if we just head down we’ll hit civilisation.’ And we keep telling her, ‘Wrong’. She doesn’t know what we’re talking about. So that was the first version of the movie.”
Ferrell said that he and writing partner Adam McKay went on to rewrite it but struggled to get film studios interested in the film.
It was finally picked up by Dreamworks in 2003 after the success of Ferrell’s Old School, and the rest is history.
Imagine the world meeting Ron under such different circumstances… we have to say we’re pretty glad they changed the script.
