I don’t know if you know this, but the Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy film is kind of a big deal. The movie has more one-liners than Regina George and has become a cult classic that never fails to make its audiences laugh.
In a surprising twist, what has become one of the most widely-enjoyed movies of our generation was almost completely different, Will Ferrell revealed in a new interview.
“The first version of Anchorman is basically the movie Alive, where the year is 1976, and we are flying to Philadelphia to celebrate the Bicentennial, and also, all the newsmen from around the country are flying in from their affiliates to have some big convention,” Ferrell told Bill Simmons on The Bill Simmons Podcast, and I am in a glass case of emotion.
He continued to explain the original movie’s plot (he was a co-writer of the film), which involved a crash-landing, orangutans, and… Chinese throwing stars?
“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 orangutans and Chinese throwing stars.”
Ferrell might have IMMEDIATELY REGRETTED THAT DECISION if it were the final plot, so it’s probably for the best that the director nixed it until it became the delightful, iconic quote-heavy masterpiece that it is today.
The notion of Ron Burgundy without a jazz flute is enough to make anyone enraged.
