“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” opens in 1975 San Diego, where Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is the top-rated anchorman at KVWN Channel 4. His news team includes field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner) and meteorologist Brick Tamland (Steve Carell). Then station director Ed Harken (Fred Willard) hires Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), and everything at the station changes.
Trailer, via Paramount Movies.
A San Diego Station in 1975
The film is Adam McKay’s directorial debut. He wrote it with Ferrell, and Judd Apatow produced it. DreamWorks Pictures released it on July 9, 2004. It runs 95 minutes.
The premise is simple. Ron is the big fish in a small pond, and the pond is local news. The station’s Action News format is the target. The film is a satire of that culture, and of the 1970s in general.
Ferrell plays Ron as a man with no interior life to speak of. He reads the news. He drinks. He owns a dog named Baxter. He believes he is loved, and at the start of the film he is right.
The News Team Around Him
The supporting cast is where the film’s reputation was built. Rudd’s Brian Fantana is the field reporter with a wardrobe and a confidence that outruns his results. Koechner’s Champ Kind is a sportscaster who treats Ron like a god. Carell’s Brick Tamland is the meteorologist, and the film’s strangest creation.
Carell plays Brick as a man whose mind works on a different schedule than everyone else’s. He is not stupid in a way the film mocks. He is simply elsewhere. It is the performance that has aged best.
Fred Willard’s Ed Harken is the station director who has to deliver every bad piece of news. He does it with a smile that never reaches his eyes. Chris Parnell appears as Garth Holliday. Kathryn Hahn plays Helen. Fred Armisen plays Tino. Seth Rogen shows up as an eager cameraman.
Veronica Corningstone Arrives
Applegate’s Veronica is the film’s engine. She wants to be a news anchor, not a novelty. She takes a job at a station where the men have never considered that a woman could do the job at all.
The team’s first move is to seduce her. Each attempt fails. Ron finally takes her on what the film calls a “professional tour” of the city. It ends in a sexual relationship.
They agree to keep it quiet. Ron announces it on air. That is the film’s first real turn, and it is the moment the movie stops being a sketch and starts being a story about a man who cannot help himself.
Baxter, the Bridge and the Ratings
The second turn is darker. A dispute with a motorcyclist ends with Baxter being punted off the San Diego–Coronado Bridge. Ron is late to work. Veronica fills in for him on air.
She draws higher ratings than Ron usually does. The couple breaks up when Ron bemoans her success. Veronica is promoted to co-anchor, and the team is disgusted.
The co-anchors become rivals off-air while keeping a phony cordiality on-air. This is the part of the film that has the most to say. It is not about whether a woman can read the news. It is about whether the men around her can stand it.
The News Team Fight
Depressed, the team decides to buy new suits. Brick leads the way and gets them lost in a shady part of town. They run into Wes Mantooth and his news team, the main competitor.
Ron challenges them to a fight. Then several other news teams converge on the spot. The Channel Two News team, the Public News Team and the Spanish-language News team all arrive. A full-on melee follows.
Police sirens break it up and everyone flees. It is the film’s biggest set piece, and it is also the point where the satire gets loud enough to drown out the characters. The scene is funny. It is also the moment the movie stops being about a station and starts being about a bit.
The Casting That Could Have Been
The film’s casting history is its own story. Ferrell and McKay wanted Ed Harris for Ed Harken. The role went to Fred Willard.
Dan Aykroyd was considered for Garth Holliday. Alec Baldwin was considered for Frank Vitchard. James Spader was considered for Brick Tamland, which is the most interesting near-miss on the list. Bob Odenkirk, Ben Stiller and Ron Livingston were all considered for Brian Fantana. John C. Reilly was originally considered for Champ Kind.
Amy Adams, Leslie Mann and Maggie Gyllenhaal auditioned for Veronica Corningstone. Applegate got it, and the film is better for it. She plays Veronica as a professional first and a romantic second, which is exactly what the part needs.
What the Film Cost and What It Made
“Anchorman” made $28.4 million in its opening weekend. It finished its theatrical run with $90.6 million worldwide against a $26 million budget. Those are good numbers for a comedy, and they are not the numbers of a phenomenon.
The reviews at release were lukewarm. The reassessment came later. The film now sits at number 100 on Bravo’s 100 funniest movies. It is number 6 on Time Out’s top 100 comedy films of all time. It is number 113 on Empire’s 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. It is number 49 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century.
Those rankings are worth noting, and worth arguing with. A film can be quoted endlessly and still be uneven. “Anchorman” is quoted endlessly. It is also uneven.
The Lost Movie and the Sequel
“Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie” was assembled from outtakes and abandoned subplots. It went straight to DVD on December 28, 2004. That is five months after the theatrical release.
A sequel, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” followed on December 18, 2013. Paramount Pictures replaced DreamWorks Pictures as the distributor.
The gap between the two films is nine years. In that time, the first film’s reputation did the work the box office did not. The sequel arrived into a different world, one where the original was already a classic. That is a hard position for any comedy.
Where the Film Stands Now
Here is what matters. “Anchorman” is not a great film with a few weak scenes. It is a very good sketch ensemble that occasionally remembers it has a plot.
The Baxter sequence is the clearest example. It is the film’s emotional center, and it is also a gag about a dog being thrown off a bridge. The film wants you to laugh and then wants you to feel something, and it does not always earn the second part.
What it does earn is the news team. Rudd, Koechner and Carell are the reason the film survived its lukewarm reception. Each of them takes a thin character and finds a rhythm. Brick in particular became the film’s most quoted creation, and Carell’s deadpan is the reason.
What it does not earn is the romance. Ron and Veronica are given a relationship because the plot needs one, not because the film has anything to say about it. The break-up scene works because Applegate plays it straight. The reconciliation does not, because the film has not done the work.
The satire is sharper than its reputation suggests. The Action News format, the station’s obsession with ratings, the way the men treat a female co-anchor as a threat rather than a colleague — these are not jokes about the 1970s. They are jokes about now, dressed in wide lapels.
That is the tension in “Anchorman.” It is a period piece that keeps refusing to stay in its period. The suits are 1975. The behavior is not.
The rankings tell you the film became beloved. The box office tells you it did not start that way. The truth is in between. “Anchorman” is a comedy with three or four great performances, one great set piece, and a plot that never quite justifies itself.
It is worth watching. It is not worth the number 6 slot on a list of the best comedies ever made. That is a ranking the film’s best moments cannot carry for 95 minutes.
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