Adam McKay

McKay decides against directing the upcoming Ant-Man film. The director was one of several replacements considered after former director Edgar Wright exited the project. Directors Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’re the Millers) and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) are still in the running. McKay has tweeted on his decision:

And yes, met w/Marvel. Kirby & Lee r my Lennon Mccartney so it was awesome. But have other projects I'm committed to. Not sure it can work.

— Adam McKay (@GhostPanther) May 31, 2014

The director is attached to the film adaptation of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.  The film is faced on the housing and budget crisis of the 2000s. McKay is writing the script for the film, which is being produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Paramount.

Michael Lewis has the amazing ability to take complex formulas and concepts and turn them into page turners. Plan B and I connected over that breathless quality the book has.

Bidding opens at CharityBuzz for a role as an extra in McKay’s next film. A minimum of $2,850 is required for bidding, with proceeds going to The Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence. The bidding rules specify:

Location, dates and cast of Adam McKay’s next film are not yet set.

Nine years after the original Anchorman, the sequel is released. Ferrell and Applegate reprise their roles with a script written by Ferrell and McKay. McKay also returns as director. The film starts with Corningstone being promoted to full-time anchor and Burgundy being fired and forced to work part-time at Sea World. McKay says Burgundy is more relevant than ever:

It’s crazy — “Anchorman” is a movie that certainly fit the time when it came out and every year it gets more and more relevant. Part of what inspired the movie was just how ridiculous the news had become. It was all ratings driven. The people were getting better and better looking. The weather women were getting outrageously beautiful. It was all about the voice and the hair…So yes, sadly, the character has gotten more and more relevant as the news has gotten to be nothing more than a ratings-driven profit machine that is never going to examine any of the real power in this country. The ridiculousness of “Anchorman” got less and less observed.

The Roach-directed political comedy appears in theaters. Working titles include Dog Fight and Southern Rivals. The film stars Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis as rivals in a North Carolina election being manipulated by the Motch brothers. Henchy and Harwell write the script, with McKay assisting on the original story. When asked about the film’s appeal for audiences, Ferrell says:

We’re hoping the audience enjoys it. It’s poking fun at the political system. There’s very good jokes in it and also there’s a little bit of a message that doesn’t swing right or left. It’s just a good message for the American people at home, I think.

McKay hosts the opening program of the fourth annual Chicago Short Comedy Video and Film Festival at the Biograph theater. The program includes a screening of 16 shorts, including two of McKay’s. The Procedure stars Dafoe, Ferrell, and Richter in a story focusing on surgical implants, while Five Finger Discount stars McKay and Shannon as a pair of dog thieves.

McKay drops out of Temple University and moves to Chicago after discovering improv.

I dropped out of college, sold my comic-book collection, bought a 1976 Chrysler New Yorker that was actually a dead man’s car, and set out to do anything I wanted. It’s almost a Johnny Cash song, but I was looking to do something that would give me infinite possibilities as a performer and would never bore me onstage.

He begins taking courses at ImprovOlympic.