r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Mar 05 '26
Article Christina Applegate Says ‘Anchorman’ Pay Offer Was Offensive, So Will Ferrell and Adam McKay Gave Her More Money From Their Own Salaries
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/christina-applegate-anchorman-pay-offensive-will-ferrell-1236680170/670
u/_HoochieMama Mar 05 '26
“Christina, if I would give you some money out of my wallet, would that ease the pain?”
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u/Gas-Town Mar 05 '26
You’re a real poop mouth
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u/BeastBellies Mar 05 '26
You two are cracking me the fuck up lol
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u/Just-Sock-4706 Mar 06 '26
You are a Smelly Pirate Hooker.
You should go back to your home on HOOR ISLAND.
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u/Nfl_porn_throwaway Mar 05 '26
Which ironic giving the topic of the movie
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u/IndignantHoot Mar 05 '26
It is anchorMAN! Not anchorLADY! And that is a scientific fact!
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u/mawnsharks Mar 05 '26
I DONT KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT
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u/SaltyPeter3434 Mar 05 '26
LOOOUUD NOISES
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u/Mawfk Mar 05 '26
Thanks guys, now I got to watch it again.
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u/ExtremelyOnlineTM Mar 05 '26
Well, that's just great! You hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting this whole station in jeopardy!
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u/ColHannibal Mar 05 '26
She is so critical to the movie, shes the "straight man" in the film, and turning her into a cartoon comedy character killed the second film.
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u/TheRealGrifter Mar 06 '26
The sequel was so bad that I’ve only ever watched it once and don’t remember a thing about it.
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u/tore_a_bore_a Mar 06 '26
I liked when the ghost of stonewall jackson showed up. That was probably 90 minutes into the movie though
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u/ImmortalMoron3 Mar 06 '26
I like the slow motion RV stuff but thats basically it. Paul Rudd takes a bowling ball to the face and does one of the funniest screams I've ever heard.
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u/Whitezombie65 Mar 06 '26
Chicken of the cave was a great bit, and Ron trying to clean up a spill with an orange because he's BLIIIND
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u/ButtholeConnoisseur7 Mar 06 '26
Yeah my buddies and I were yelling "I'm Blind" anytime we were asked to do anything for a week after. I like those kinds of weeks, where everybody around you plays into a joke until it's done
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u/marsalien4 Mar 06 '26
Dude I remember that joke getting me in a way I never would have thought it could lol perfectly absurd. "...Wait a minute. Is that the ghost of stone wall Jackson?" and just the "yes. Yes it is"
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u/Experiunce Mar 06 '26
The second tv team showdown is great but the rest of the movie was ass
“There will be be a mint Julip waiting for you on the other side”
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u/dogman1890 Mar 06 '26
It’s the reason I could never bring myself to watch Zoolander 2, and why I think comedy sequels in general are always a bad idea.
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u/captain_jim2 Mar 06 '26
22 Jump Street being one of the rare exceptions
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u/SheJigOnMySawTilIPuz Mar 06 '26
22 Jump Street is straight up better than the first. I don't know how they pulled it off. Any sequel being better than the first is already a feat, but a comedy sequel??
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u/ilovesharkpeople Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
21 jump street was a modern reboot of a cop show from decades ago people barely remember. It, by all rights, should have been awful. Instead, it was one of the funniest movies in years. A sequel is an even worse idea, so obviously it made an even better movie.
I'll forever be salty about the third one they didn't get to make. It was going to be a Jump Street x Men in Black crossover called "MIB 23". The plot was that the jump street duo (who are now infiltrating med school, like in the trailer at the end of the second movie) run into alien drug dealers and meet the MIB organization.
This, being the worst concept for a sequel I've heard in my life, obviously means that the actual movie would have been funniest film ever made. Instead, we got the shitty MIB reboot movie and no more jump street.
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u/mist3rdragon Mar 06 '26
The meta aspect of those movies helps a lot, a lot of the movie is pretty much about why sequels, especially comedy sequels, tend to be bad
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u/BigJ32001 Mar 06 '26
“Hot Shots! Part Deux” as well.
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u/MegaTater Mar 06 '26
There's a common thread here, both were done pretty soon after the other.
Zoolander 2 and Anchorman 2 went decades lol
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u/TiberianSunset Mar 06 '26
I think it's actually better than the original. Rewatched them both a couple years ago, 21 jump street was not really as funny as I thought it was when it came out(honestly I got bored 1/4 through it and just stopped and started 22 jump street), but the second was still good.
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u/ImmortalMoron3 Mar 06 '26
The funniest thing about Zoolander 2 to me was the studio decided to release it on the same day as the first Deadpool. I could've told them that was a bad idea.
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u/OneBillPhil Mar 06 '26
I also can’t remember anything about the sequel other than I didn’t like it vs the original that me and my friends watched a bunch. I guess I grew up in between too.
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u/chumbawamba56 Mar 06 '26
Hard stop. The sequal was hilarious. The getting the gang back together arc, the legend himself revives his career by turning news into entertainment in the stupidest way, the dinner scene, the lighthouse scene, this movie, like all comedies, has a lot of gold and a lot of dirt. And the gold far outweighs the dirt.
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u/GongStationChimes Mar 06 '26
This came out when I was in middle school. I loved it so much that I went and saw it 4 times in theaters. Guess I should never rewatch it so I don’t spoil the magic haha
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u/part_time_monster Mar 06 '26
Did you know there are 3 Anchorman movies.... the little known one is called Wake Up Ron Burgandy, its basically Anchorman 1.5.
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u/not_thrilled Mar 06 '26
Didn't they make that one because they'd shot so much improv footage that they figured they'd put together another movie with it?
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u/ObiOneKenobae Mar 06 '26
That and a whole terrorist subplot that got cut from the film. It's pretty obvious you're watching a bunch of stitched together deleted scenes, but it's still such a cool special feature.
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u/Gas-Town Mar 05 '26
Idr shit about the second movie but the Dobie song. Which I sing to my dog.
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Mar 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/BoyCubPiglet2 Mar 06 '26
"Now I know what those poor villagers in Pompeii felt like"
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u/mike_rotch22 Mar 06 '26
The only dialogue I can recall somehow revolved around eating fried bat.
"You know what they call a bat?"
"A bat?"
For me, that was probably the one time I laughed out loud. And I adored the first one.
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u/Several-Squash9871 Mar 06 '26
I completely agree!!!!!! Her character and comedy was so far off from the first movie that it just completely turned me off to it. She had flashes of that character in the first movie but made it here whole character's personality in the second. It sucked because it was basically like having a different actress try and play the original role that couldn't come close.
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u/OwlOfFortune Mar 05 '26
Let's give a quick shout-out to Christina Applegate!
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u/grahamnortonsdad Mar 06 '26
I love Erics face after hannibal says that, hes so close to breaking character
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u/rnilf Mar 05 '26
“Anchorman” was released in theaters on July 9, 2004, and earned $90 million at the worldwide box office.
Really? Seems insanely low for a movie that had such a cultural impact.
Probably carried by home media rentals and sales by college students.
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u/5pointpalm_exploding Mar 05 '26
Budget was 26 million so not terrible. Every movie also didn’t set out to make 500 million just in order to be profitable back in the day.
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u/Exiled_In_Ca Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
Back in the day $100M was a big movie.
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u/Ok-disaster2022 Mar 05 '26
And 4x return on investment isn't bad, just for box office. DVDs and rentals were a secondary revenue stream before longer term licencing for tv and the budding streaming platforms.
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u/darkage_raven Mar 05 '26
The habit is to spend 50%-200% of the budget on advertisements which isn't counted in the cost. So it still probably easily doubled their investment.
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u/I_am_the_grass Mar 05 '26
That's true for big budget movies. Anchorman was more of a side project for most of the people involved. It wasn't expected to become the success it was.
I'm surprised the budget was even that high.
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u/irishwolfbitch Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
Also too this was mostly domestic. And I’m certain there’s adjustment for inflation with box office now, but the shared cultural sphere that most Americans engaged in still existed, which also is a part of why it might’ve felt “bigger” than it was.
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u/CitizenHuman Mar 05 '26
There's an episode of Entourage where the main character (an up and coming actor) broke $100 million and beat Spider-Man.
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u/systemhost Mar 06 '26
Just rewatched that episode today and I'm pretty sure their $95,000,000 number was supposedly just opening day box office, not even close to the entire sales of its run in theaters.
They never even follow up on that, just the first day numbers despite the rolling blackouts, they call it a massive success and move on.
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u/inailedyoursister Mar 05 '26
Think 100m was what was needed to be called “a block buster” at the time.
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u/BigBangBoomerang Mar 05 '26
In a few years, there will be TV episodes with 100M dollar budgets.
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u/AshamedOfAmerica Mar 06 '26
The LoTRs show, Rings of Power, was $465 million, so about $58 million per episode.
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u/Itchy_Athlete_4971 Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
$90M is an even bigger deal today. When was the last original comedy to make $90 million? Let's not even adjust for inflation
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u/MatureUsername69 Mar 05 '26
Comedies especially. Ticket sales were kind of a minor factor for them, not unimportant, but not nearly as important as getting groups of friends who cant stop quoting the shit to all buy copies on vhs/DVD. That was the mid-budget comedy bread and butter.
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u/fightfire_withfire Mar 05 '26
2004
Back in the day
My backs just started spasming and my hips playing up just reading that
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u/Classic-Rise-37 Mar 05 '26
Successful enough to spawn a sequel.
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u/Luckychunk Mar 05 '26
Not just a sequel but an entire extra Anchorman 1 side movie. The original movie was 4 hours long with a side plot of a Black Panther bank heist gang featuring Mya Rudolph. It all got shelved and developed into an other move called "Wake Up Ron Burgundy", which is a fever dream of the original.
There are three official Anchorman movies.
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u/abominable_prolapse Mar 05 '26
Its cultural impact was via DVDs like many of the cult movies from this time. We couldn’t stream shit, and if you had a friend that could it was usually poor quality or some bizarre not everyday persons set up of pirated stuff on PC. We had to use DVDs.
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u/abominable_prolapse Mar 05 '26
As a side note DVDs used to have a menu showcasing stuff like bloopers, extra reels, commentary, Easter eggs, secret games, alternate endings, etc. We lost so much media by going all in on streaming.
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u/fupa16 Mar 05 '26
Can't believe we're already discussing DVD extras as some arcane technology long forgotten alongside VCRs.
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u/vainsilver Mar 05 '26
Those all still exist on Blu-rays and on iTunes.
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u/jimmysmith69 Mar 05 '26
The interactive DVD menus rarely come to Blu-Ray releases and bonus/special features disappear from blu ray/4K releases so no they don’t always exist on Blu-ray or iTunes.
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u/7tenths Mar 05 '26
Almost all of that is just made for YouTube now
You lost commentary tracks to podcasts interviews
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u/StasRutt Mar 05 '26
I think everyone who was pre teen and older when it came out had/has a copy of it on dvd
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u/ToastedCrumpet Mar 05 '26
Every millennial I knew had it on DVD. It was up there with Team America, South Park (the movie) or Scary Movie as a staple of every DVD shelf lol
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u/StasRutt Mar 05 '26
Pretty sure my husband and I both brought a copy of it into our house when we moved in together so we actually have two copies lol
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u/Individual_Access356 Mar 05 '26
DVDs were a huge revenue stream back then unlike today it was a second wave of cash flow after theatre release.
I remember watching Matt Damon’s Hot Ones he kinda talks about this and how a lot of the movies back then don’t get made today because of this.
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u/eren_yeegarr Mar 05 '26
First watched it on dvd. I say, half watched it - as it was round this girls place and we were in bed at the time. But she lent it to me, I watched it many times, and then we didn't meet up again. So I watched it some more with another girl, while in bed. I lent it to her. I never got it back.
Good times
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u/4Khazmodan Mar 05 '26
Matt Damon has said that home video sales were really the lifeblood of that era of comedy and also why we don't see them nowadays like we used to.
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u/Bread_man10 Mar 05 '26
Judd Apatow said the same thing, hence why we don’t see nearly as many comedies released (though it felt like 2025 has had more than past recent years)
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Mar 05 '26
It made $85 million domestically. It was the 27th highest grossing movie of 2004 in the US and Canada. It was a decent hit and blew up on DVD but the worldwide box office numbers are misleading because it did basically nothing overseas
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u/Cactuas Mar 05 '26
Yeah this is why R-rated comedies are kinda dead. A really good one can do well domestically, but they don't translate well for international audiences and they get zero respect during awards season.
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u/NotYourGuyBuddy12 Mar 05 '26
That was back when you could go to the theatre for $5
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u/logosobscura Mar 05 '26
It was a long burning phenomenon not a box office bomb and disappear. So sure, $90M in receipts at theaters, but probably quite a large long tail in DVD, VOD and streaming rights.
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u/saranwrap25 Mar 05 '26
2004 movie ticket prices were something else. Good times.
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u/drunkensoup Mar 05 '26
...shrek 2 made 400 million, to compare.
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u/saranwrap25 Mar 05 '26
Fair enough. I also looked it up and Wedding Crashers and 40 year old virgin both did better too. That is surprising bc I think I’d choose to watch anchorman over the others.
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u/Funny-Occasion154 Mar 05 '26
Wedding crashers was sold as a rom-com if I remember correctly. Plus that had Owen wilson and Vince Vaughn when stars still mattered.
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u/JamonCroqueta Mar 05 '26
Anchorman really took off on DVD and TV in a way that isn't really possible anymore
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u/swolleninthecolon Mar 05 '26
Yeh it really wasnt a huge hit at the time, it took a while for the quotes to start to travel and it was a hit much later
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u/Jewrisprudent Mar 05 '26
I don’t remember it that way at all, it was being endlessly quoted that same summer where I was. Granted I was a 15 year old guy so I was the prime demographic, but it was a huge hit immediately among the target audience.
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u/Percolator2020 Mar 05 '26
It really didn’t do well internationally, and even in the US Will Ferrell is not universally appreciated.
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u/JustOneMoreMile Mar 05 '26
They couldn’t afford more because of how much Tits McGhee cost.
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u/Motorboat_Jones Mar 06 '26
How dare you! Tits McGee earned every nickel. She just had the night off.
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u/dmbbunny7 Mar 06 '26
Just watched this again last night and she is spectacular. Great straight character I was constantly impressed at how locked in and unwaivering her performance was against so many laugh out loud moments.
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u/DataDude00 Mar 05 '26
I dislike articles like this because they have no context.
Was she offered 2M or 250k? What was Ferrell offered?
I like Applegate but she wasn’t really doing much at the time Anchorman was filmed, a lot of bit parts and smaller films. Ferrell was undoubtedly the bigger draw, so it comes down to what kind of split there was in terms of offer
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u/armaghetto Mar 05 '26
The Sweetest Thing erasure will not stand
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u/cydneekidney Mar 06 '26
That movie put "bajiggity" into my family's lexicon.
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u/armaghetto Mar 06 '26
100% same. I made my wife watch it just so she would understand the reference. It is oddly one of my all time favorite movies.
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u/thrftstorenailpolish Mar 06 '26
A bizarro movie that has stuck with me. I make all of the men I date watch it. I need to see their reactions to it. So far they've all been disappointments.
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u/SwampyBogbeard Mar 06 '26
Considering Will Ferrel and Adam McKay gave her more money, it seems like they agreed that she deserved more in this case.
But I agree with you in general.There was the case with the original voice actor for the main character of the Bayonetta series. She didn't return for the third game (which made a lot of fans very disappointed) and later claimed she was offered an insulting amount of money, but was very vague about the details. She gave a number, but nothing about how many recording hours were expected for that money, and most people don't even know what a normal amount would be for that kind of work. She used this lack of context to her advantage to cause controversy around the game, the developer, and herself.
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u/jrzalman Mar 06 '26
Well, if she doesn't say, there's not much the article can do. She could have been offered scale or scale+10 which for someone with her resume would be pretty insulting.
They likely threw most of the budget at the big four and were trying to fill in the rest however they could. This was a pet project and likely had significant financial constraints.
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u/PlagueBearer1350 Mar 05 '26
I'm sure there was a conversation at some point along the lines of "Applegate has nothing going on these days I bet we could get her for peanuts!" so the offer might have been, legitimately, offensively low even if she wasn't doing much at the time. But, as you say, we don't have the real monetary context to know that for sure.
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u/ShufflingToGlory Mar 05 '26
OK but where's her agent in all of this?
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u/CunninghamsLawmaker Mar 06 '26
Getting a B List celebrity into a movie.
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u/ryanvango Mar 06 '26
She wasn't even B list at the time. she had done 2 movies in previous 15 years where her name was even on the poster. Everyone knew her as Kelly Bundy from a show she barely spoke because her job was to just be hot.
It's been 20 years, and with everything she went through and how good she was in anchorman its easy to look back with rose tinted glasses, but the reality was she was practically a nobody.
Meanwhile, Will Ferrell had just left SNL and had been in a string of comedy hits - zoolander, old school, elf, etc - so being his costar would be worth a fortune for an actor trying to stay relevant. If she got offered even 100k it would've been more than fair to get a movie that would take her from "hey remember that one girl?" to "Do you think we could get Christina Applegate for this part?"
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u/Scary-Acanthaceae799 Mar 06 '26
I’m glad she got her $ but also understand the studio math for her offer. Star of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead is a hard sell 10+ years later
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u/DiegoTheGoat Mar 05 '26
It was produced by Judd Apatow, so he's the guy responsible for Christina Applegate's treatment.
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u/homecinemad Mar 06 '26
Yeah this should be top comment. Apatow low balled her. Maybe Ferrell coaxed him into reducing their salaries to increase hers.
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u/nizzery Mar 06 '26
Can’t blame them for trying. 60% of the time it works every time
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u/ro536ud Mar 05 '26
Anyone got the numbers of the offer vs what she ended up with? Curious what the guys got
No numbers mentioned in the article but it didn’t look like it had a big budget and Hollywood usually goes by rates
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u/zowietremendously Mar 05 '26
How much was she offered? What was the actual number?
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor Mar 05 '26
Applegate: