The Potentialities of the Anchorman Sequel

What does the Anchorman sequel have in store for its fans? We provide some light-hearted suggestions...

Ron Burgundy appeared on Comic Relief to promote Red Nose Day in what he told us was a polar bear coat, looking like a miniature Buddha, covered in hair. While we’re not even mad, just impressed, at him being willing to appear on a very British fundraiser and not explicitly plug his upcoming film, it still fixed his image in our minds. This summer, Anchorman 2 is coming to take your mother out for a nice seafood dinner, and never call her back. How long can these mindless quotations last? Well, like poetry, a glass of scotch, and, of course, my friend Baxter here, these are the things we love. So never.

But will the film be any good? What direction will Adam McKay, returning director, take with the film? There’s been rumours that it’s going to be a musical. There’s also been rumours that it’s not going to be a musical. But what if it was a horror? A romantic drama? A war movie? An anime? Well, now this is happening. Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

One of the more obvious options is horror. There’s been talk of Anchorman 2: The Anchor Man on this very website (in this article, in fact). It’s a prequel, and it gives us some insight into the events in Ron Burgundy’s earlier life that made him want to involve himself in the world of news and media. As a teenager, he was involved in one of the biggest news stories of the time – he was almost a victim of the Anchor Man, a murderous sailor who revenged himself on the city of San Diego armed only with an anchor. Ron and his friends fall into the clutches of the Anchor Man on the way home from a rawkus high school beach party. They hit a dog and, thinking it was a person, return to investigate. The relief on their faces upon seeing that it was “just a dog”, and their callous attempts to hide the body (in increasingly grim and comedic ways) enrage the passing owner, and he takes it upon himself to rid the city of its cruel teenagers. He stalks local schools, parks, and causes havoc until he eventually comes face to face with Ron. Seeing the love that the Anchor Man had for his dog is what made Ron himself come to love dogs, and is the root of his close relationship with Baxter in the original movie. Ron eventually kills the Anchor Man, but makes it look like a suicide, and the subsequent media attention piques his interest in that area as a possible career.

Or will Anchorman 2 be a romantic drama? One in which Ron Burgundy, as one half of America’s first married news team (along with Veronica Corningstone), has to learn to love again after the dissolution of his marriage? Such a long career puts pressure on the high-powered couple, and after spending so long at the top the cracks begin to show. It’s not a relationship that explodes, however; it’s a relationship that just slowly fades away, minor argument after minor argument, until one day there’s nothing left. Ron is buying dog food when Veronica calls him to remind him to pick up some toilet paper. Of course, it dissovles into another argument, the only difference being that as he hangs up, Ron realises their time together is over. He moves out and finds a flat above the dive bar from the first movie, where he spends six months crying and drinking milk, until he meets an attractive barmaid, also coming out of a bad break-up, who takes a shine to his cranky ways. As they take tentative steps in their relationship, they come to love each other and the world again.

Maybe it won’t be a romantic drama. Maybe it’ll be a political thriller?

Ron Burgundy runs for senator and uncovers a massive conspiracy of some kind. It could be drugs, it could be pirate hookers, or it could be a shipment of Sex Panther’s more potent and infinitely more illegal cousin, Sex Panda. After discovering that the Chinese are to blame (it’s an American film; the Chinese are always to blame), Burgundy uses his journalistic and political know-how to save the world, and indeed, the day.

As it stands, however, most clues to the sequel’s content point to it being a knockabout comedy, very much in the vein of the original, so any deviation would be extremely unlikely.

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