Director/producer Adam McKay has spoken out about Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg’s second big screen team-up after The Other Guys.
We reported on the film earlier this week, when it was being called Turkey Bowl. Thanks to another film getting picked up under that title, the comedy’s now being tentatively called Three Mississippi.
“The idea was originally conceived for Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin,” McKay reveals. “Owen Burke, who’s a producer at Gary Sanchez, and I were talking about how crazily funny Wahlberg and Baldwin were in The Departed - how, even though it’s not a comedy, we could just watch them all day long.
“Burke dropped this idea, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a movie!’ Then Will heard it and he wanted in.”
McKay goes on to add that the film is about two rival families (of which Baldwin is the patriarch and Wahlberg is the son) who live across the park from one another and get into a annual football competition.
“The game gets nastier and nastier as the years go on,” says McKay, “and Ferrell’s family starts just destroying the other family.
“The whole spirit of it is that it’s just a giant, fun ensemble comedy. We want to populate it with people we love. There’s a funny subplot with Rob Riggle where he’s a gay cousin that Wahlberg’s family sort of turned their backs on but he played football at Fresno State and they need him.
“We’re going to try to get Jeremy Renner to play an ex-con. The idea is to bring in, like, 15 people that we love in and just do a big, funny holiday movie.”
McKay, however, will probably be too busy directing comic adap The Boys to take up the camera on Mississippi . Even if he doesn’t have time to helm the Ferrell/Baldwin/Wahlberg comedy, it’s definitely sounding like one to keep an eye on.
