The R-Rated Comedy Classic On Paramount+ That Suffered Terrible Test Screenings

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was co-written by Saturday Night Live alumni Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who was a writer for SNL. The film originally had a different ending inspired by a disaster film named Alive, but after it received poor reviews from test audiences, it was changed to its current ending. The film also has a theatrical cut which is rated PG-13 and an R-Rated/Director’s Cut.

The main differences between the PG-13 and R-rated versions of Anchorman are found in the dialogue and extended scenes. One such scene is when David Koechner’s character Champ Kind talks about his morning after being hungover.

In the PG-13 version, he talks about waking up in a Japanese family’s rec room, while the R-rated/Director’s Cut version has him talk about how he had a bowel movement that produced a live squirrel. Steve Carrell’s character, Brick Tamland, then chimes in about how he mistook the squirrel for chocolate.

Eventually, the film found a producer in Judd Apatow’s production company Apatow Productions, which also went on to produce other such comedies as The 40-Year Old Virgin starring Anchorman co-star Steve Carrell, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and many other such comedies. After finding its producer, the film also found its director, Adam McKay. The film was distributed by DreamWorks Pictures, which also produced films such as Shrek and Transformers.

Will Ferrell, who was on Saturday Night Live from 1995-2002 and was in hilarious sketches such as the Cowbell sketch and the Lost Baby sketch, starred as Ron Burgundy in the film. Co-starring alongside him in Anchorman are Christina Applegate, future Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero Ant-Man, Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell who would later go on to star in The Office, and David Koechner.

Anchorman was given a budget of $26 million and made $90.6 million, which came in second place behind the Tobey Maguire-led Marvel superhero film Spider-Man 2. While the studio wanted to make $100 million over its initial investment, $90.6 million still seems like a pretty penny which results in over $60 million in profits. The film also received praise from both critics and audiences.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a critic rating of 66 percent and an audience rating of 86 percent, whereas on Metacritic it holds a critic score of 63 and an audience score of 7.9. Will Ferrell would reprise the role of Ron Burgundy again in 2013 with the sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. The sequel, which had a $50 million budget, made over $170 million at the box office and also sits fairly high with critics. The R-rated version of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy can be found on Paramount+.