Back in 2008 Will Ferrell was coming off back-to-back critical and box-office disappointments with "Semi Pro" and "Blades of Glory." Never one to be counted out, the popular comedian decided to re-team with with John C. Reilly for his next movie. There were clearly comedic sparks happening between the two of them, what with the infectious chemistry they showcased in 2006's "Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby." It was inevitable that they would team up again for another comedy.
In Adam McKay's "Step Brothers," Ferrell and Reilly played two grown-up man-children being forced to live together as brothers in the same house. Greeted with mixed reviews (55% on Rotten Tomatoes,53 on Metacritic), the film nevertheless garnered top box-office money ($100M domestically). Still, the way critics beat up on the film, with Roger Ebert giving it 1.5 stars and famously saying "When did comedies get so mean?" nobody in their right mind foreshadowed the inevitable fanfare the film would garner on home video and TV.
The repetitive cable airings have proven to be very beneficial for "Step Brothers," Rolling Stone had a famous re-evaluation of the film , The AV Club had it as the 21st best comedy of the aughts, Complex ranked it as the 13th best comedy of ALL TIME, but, most impressively, a BBC poll of 177 critics had it ranked as 64th greatest comedy of all-time and 7th best of the aughts. Not too shabby for a film that was the whipping boy of the critical community during the summer of 2008. Talk of a sequel has been happening each ensuing year and, yet, it remains to be seen if we will ever have that desired follow-up.
On this week’s Happy Sad Confused podcast [The Playlist], McKay, promoting his Dick-Cheney biopic “Vice,” spoke about his reluctance to make a sequel:
“I think what we really learned is that so much of comedy is surprise, the newness of it; where the heck did these characters come from,” he explained. "So, after realizing that I still love [‘Anchorman 2,’], but no. Well, I shouldn’t say no, we’re not going to do ‘Step Brothers 2,’ because if there is a great idea or there is the right moment, we would and maybe it’s Dale and Brennan figuring out how to separate Co2 as an inert gas from the atmosphere and save mankind from global warming, maybe. Maybe that’s it,” he laughed.
Lastly, he spoke about the oft-rumored “The Last Patriots,” a border wall comedy that he wants Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly to co-star in. “We’re kicking [the idea] around still. It’s called ‘The Last Patriots,’” he revealed. “It’s Ferrell and John C. Reilly go down to the border to build the wall on their own cause it’s not happening. So that’s another.”
That. Would. Be. Amazing.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.