There’s been a ton of back and forth over the last couple of years about the possibility of Anchorman 2. The first film is a bona fide classic, a truly great comedy that arrived at a time when studio comedies were at their lowest. Ever since Ron Burgundy and the rest of the San Diego news crew burst on the scene, people have been talking about a sequel. Every time director Adam McKay or stars Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd or Steve Carrel talk to the press someone asks them about the status of the film, and every time they seem to be pretty optimistic.

But behind the scenes things haven’t gone smoothly. There was the problem that each of the leads had exploded into fame, making scheduling Anchorman 2  a problem. Then there was also the fact that everybody’s quotes had changed drastically since the first film. Paramount hemmed and hawed, worried about the budget. But even getting everybody to lower their salary didn’t seem to help, as Adam McKay just tweeted this nugget of bad news:

So bummed. Paramount basically passed on Anchorman 2. Even after we cut our budget down. We tried.

That’s too bad. I won’t lie, I wasn’t that interested in an Anchorman 2, if only because recapturing that weird magic seems so unlikely. But if these guys thought they had a concept so good they would take pay cuts to make it – meaning this wasn’t just a cash grab sequel – that means it could have been something special. But I guess we’ll never know at this point.