Adam McKay is 'open' to working with Will Ferrell again after unexpected 2019 split: 'We had a gr...
The two worked together as part of Gary Sanchez Productions.
Adam McKay is ‘open’ to working with Will Ferrell again after unexpected 2019 split: ‘We had a great run’
The two worked together as part of Gary Sanchez Productions.
By Raechal Shewfelt
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Raechal Shewfelt
Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.
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June 25, 2026 9:11 p.m. ET
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Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Credit:
Frazer Harrison/Getty; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty
- 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. "
** has reached out to a rep for Ferrell.
The *Elf** *star told the *Hollywood Reporter *in October 2021 that McKay had been more interested in the company's future than he was.
Christina Applegate says Will Ferrell and Adam McKay took pay cuts to boost her 'Anchorman' salary
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Tina Fey remembers the time Will Ferrell 'face planted' in notorious, failed 'SNL' sketch
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"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.
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Adam McKay and Will Ferrell in 2010.
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."
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