Adam McKay has said that in the first draft of the script, the story was about a planeload of news anchors who crash in the mountains and discover that the plane which they collided was carrying monkeys and martial arts equipment, leading to a battle between cannibalistic newsmen and star-throwing monkeys.
Many of the actors in this film are well versed in the art of improvisation and would sometimes do up to 20 different versions of reaction lines trying out the first thing that popped into their heads.
The Mexican restaurant Veronica visits with the girls from the station is named “Escupimos en su Alimento.” In Spanish, that means, “We spit in your food.”
Although Anchorman is set in San Diego, the real San Diego appears only in brief aerial shots – modern shots that include many downtown buildings not yet built in the 1970s. According to the official production notes and “making of” documentary (both included on the DVD), Anchorman was actually filmed in Los Angeles, Glendale, and Long Beach on sets which were dressed to look like San Diego in the 1970s. Notably, Los Angeles, Glendale, and Long Beach are in the studio zone, while San Diego is not.
Maggie Gyllenhaal auditioned for the role of Veronica.
The first draft of the screenplay included suggested actors for various roles:
Champ Kind: John C. Reilly
Brick Tamland: Chris Parnell
Brian Fantana: Ben Stiller
Ed Harken: Ed Harris
Garth Holiday: Dan Aykroyd
Frank Vitchard: Alec Baldwin
The script also specified another member of the news team, Marshall Connors, with William H. Macy suggested for the part.
This film is the first part of Adam McKay’s and Will Ferrell’s “Mediocre American Man Trilogy.” The second part is Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. On all parts McKay works as the director, Ferrell is the main actor and they both work as writers on the projects.
This film had been pitched to DreamWorks nearly 20 times before. DreamWorks had little faith in the film, doubting that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay would be able to pull off an entire film based on news anchors. The film went on to gross $84 million domestically and McKay had so much extra footage that he was able to make a second film out of it.
This movie was inspired by a biography show that Will Ferrell watched about Jessica Savitch, and how one of her male coworkers confessed to being a total chauvinist back in the day.
