The end of The Colbert Report does leave a giant blowhard-size hole in our political-satire landscape. On the other hand, I would personally love watching Ron Burgundy argue with the AOL “You’ve Got Mail!†voice. Despite what he said last year about the Anchorman franchise being kaput, Adam McKay is apparently weighing the same tradeoffs, as evidenced by a recent Yahoo Movies interview.
“We talked about doing one that was about the rise of the new media,†The Big Short director explained. “I also thought there was something to the idea — and who knows, maybe we will do one some day — I also thought it’d be cool to have Ron Burgundy get embedded in the Iraq War. We kicked around that idea. But we’ve never got that serious about it, but it would have to be the next stage of what the media has become. And I think you’re right, I think it’s the internet. The only thing is by then Burgundy would be getting pretty old. So maybe it’s a movie we make in 10 years, when Will’s aged up and it actually makes sense that you can set it in 1997 or 98.†This is perfect. We can have Ron Burgundy cover the Gulf War, end up in a coma, and then wake up just in time to scream hysterically at the sound of a connecting modem. And so it was decided.