Adam McKay is 'open' to working with Will Ferrell again after unexpected 2019 split: 'We had a great run'
Adam McKay is 'open' to working with Will Ferrell again after unexpected 2019 split: 'We had a great run'
Raechal ShewfeltFri, June 26, 2026 at 1:11 AM UTC
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Adam McKay and Will FerrellCredit: Frazer Harrison/Getty; Dimitrios Kambouris/GettyKey Points -
Adam McKay answered the question of whether he would work with Will Ferrell again in a recent interview.
The two worked together as Gary Sanchez Productions until 2019.
The pair has given varying accounts of the split.
Will Ferrell's former producing partner, Adam McKay, is down to work with him again.
"I totally have been open to the idea," McKay, who owned Gary Sanchez Productions with the Saturday Night Live alum between 2006 and 2019, told Business Insider for a story published Thursday. "We always got along great, we were tremendous creative partners. The only thing that caused acrimony between us was when we decided to end our production company, Gary Sanchez. And I know it was reported one way or the other, but that was really it."
Gary Sanchez Productions was behind movies such as Step Brothers, The Other Guys, and Vice, as well as TV series including HBO's Danny McBride baseball comedy Eastbound & Down.
"It's a shame because we had a great creative partnership. I think both of us underestimated the complications that go with not just having a company, but a very successful company," McKay said. "We had it for a long time and did a lot of cool projects. And Ferrell said it publicly, he was never someone who wanted to produce, so he was always half in and half out, but then he would love it and be proud of the company, but by the end, he wanted to move on."
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As McKay saw it, the job had stopped being fun for his business partner.
"It had become too much extra work; it was never his passion," McKay said. "I was really the one who wanted to produce, but a movie star's life is very different than a writer-director's life. So we split up. But life goes on. We had a great run. I certainly have no hard feelings and, who knows, we'll see what happens. "
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Entertainment Weekly has reached out to a rep for Ferrell.
The Elfstar told the Hollywood Reporter in October 2021 that McKay had been more interested in the company's future than he was.
"Adam was like, 'I want to do this, and this, and this'; he wanted growth and a sphere of influence, and I was just like, 'I don't know, that sounds like a lot that I have to keep track of,'" Ferrell said. "To me, the potential of seeing a billboard, and being like: 'Oh, we're producing that?' I don't know. … At the end of the day, we just have different amounts of bandwidth."
Weeks later, though, McKay said the breakup was because of hurt feelings.
Adam McKay and Will Ferrell in 2010Credit: Eric Charbonneau/WireImage
McKay pointed to his decision to give Ferrell's frequent costar John C. Reilly the part of late Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in the HBO comedy Winning Time. It was supposed to have gone to Ferrell.
"I should have called him and I didn't," McKay told Vanity Fair. "And Reilly did, of course, because Reilly, he's a stand-up guy … I f---ed up on how I handled that."
After that, McKay said, Ferrell "basically was like, 'Have a good life.' And I'm like, 'F–k, Ferrell's never going to talk to me again.' So it ended not well."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
