Earlier this week,Deadline reportedthat Adam McKay’s planned next film, Average Height, Average Build, has been canceled. This isn’t a Coyote vs. Acme or Batgirl situation, though. McKay chose to step away.
McKay originated the script, andNetflixis reportedly not seeking to keep the project alive now the Don’t Look Up director is no longer interested. McKay departed the project — which would have starred Robert Pattinson as a serial killer who enters politics to make the law more conducive to murder, and Robert Downey, Jr. as a retired cop on his case — to develop a film about climate change.
That decision tells you much of what you need to know about the decision-making that has guided this second act of McKay’s career, an act that began with his 2015 docu-dramedy about the 2008 financial crisis, The Big Short. Obviously, climate change is a deeply important issue. In my opinion, it’s the most significant problem we face as a species, and pushing our governments to take meaningful action to counteract its effects is as important as it gets. It’s undoubtedly good that McKay, a wealthy, well-known filmmaker, is concerned about the issue.
The problem is: the interests you pursue as a good person are not necessarily the interests you pursue as a good filmmaker. That isn’t to say that the pursuit of morality and artistic excellence are necessarily at odds, but setting out to make a movie with a big, wide topic in mind is not likely to lead to an interesting film. And, if McKay’s previous climate change allegory, Don’t Look Up, is any indication, a deeply important topic may not translate to a funny one either.
McKay knows how to make funny movies. He’s made several great comedies. In fact, I’d put his run from 2004 to 2010 (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, The Other Guys) up against any streak a comedy director has had in the 21st century. With longtime collaborator Will Ferrell, McKay made several of the defining comedies of the past 20 years. Then, McKay seemed to lose interest in laughs and gain interest in prestige, moving away from straight comedy and into Oscar-friendly dramedies. So far, this stage of his career has produced The Big Short, Vice, and Don’t Look Up; all Oscar-nominated, all unfunny.
Finding a specific story that you’re interested in telling or characters that you’re interested in writing about or a specific milieu that you’re interested in exploring is a much more likely route to success than setting your sites on something as big and nebulous as “Climate Change.” This is the approach that McKay seemed to follow in the first half of his career, coming up with funny ideas about race car drivers and anchormen and pathetic pencil-pushing cops, pursuing the comedy in those situations, and letting the social commentary emerge from the jokes, not straining to inject comedy into the social commentary.
McKay’s last straight comedy was Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, which is a decade old this month.
McKay and Ferrell hada falling outback in 2019 when McKay cast Ferrell’s best friend, actor John C. Reilly, in the HBO series Winning Time, instead of Ferrell, as was initially planned. Their long-running creative partnership ended over the fallout, and as of early 2022, they hadn’t mended fences. Given that Ferrell’s recent starring roles, like this year’s raunchy talking dog comedyStrays, haven’t been particularly inspired, it seems like it would be in both of their best interests to patch things up. They made their best work together, and Hollywood comedy would be better off if the two would just make some broad, theatrically released comedies together again. That sounds more interesting than another laughless dramedy about climate change.
