Adam McKay Says Parting Ways With Will Ferrell Felt Like a Breakup

Adam McKay and Will Ferrel had a tragic fall out. It’s fair to say that it was a mutual decision. McKay detailed the breakup of both his Gary Sanchez Productions business and decades-long friendship with Will Ferrell.

The director-producer-screenwriter-comic recently dissolved his nearly 14-year partnership with Will Ferrell and their company, Gary Sanchez Productions. The production house was home of such famed comedies as the Anchorman franchise, Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers.

In an in-depth Vanity Fair interview, McKay explained how his decision to cast Ferrell’s best friend John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss in HBO’s limited series about the 1980s L.A. Lakers marked the years of creative differences between the two and culminated into a split that has yet to be repaired.

“As clean as we both tried to make it go, there were moments afterward where we weren’t exactly chummy,”

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“I kept trying to frame it like, ‘Hey, it’s OK. It’s its natural conclusion,’ but as I would say it, it didn’t quite feel right. It felt like a breakup.”

I’m looking forward to when the dust has settled. I’d love to just go watch a Lakers game with him and kick back and get back to our old kind of rhythm. But, yeah, I can’t lie, at the end of it, we were both kind of bummed out.” McKay told The Hollywood Reporter.

As much he looks forward for the dust to settle, McKay can’t seem to get over the disbanding. After all, McKay and Ferrell’s partnership spanned 25 years. The pair even worked on some of the best episodes of Saturday Night Live together.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the film director said “its crazy” how much his fall out with Ferrell has been reported. The remarked was made in direct reference to the Vanity Fair profile from November, where he explained why he and Ferrell no longer speak.

McKay’s hoped that there would be more coverage for his upcoming Netflix climate change comedy, Don’t Look Up. The movie has a star studded A-list ensemble with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Chris Evans, Ariana Grande and many more. It’s slated for a limited theatrical release on Dec. 10 and a Netflix debut on Dec. 24. 

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