Adam McKay is planning a border-patrol comedy with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly

By Dennis DiClaudio | January 20, 2016 | 9:27pm

Aux Features Film

If you were worried that receiving two Academy Award nominations might have changed Adam McKay, don’t be: According to IndieWire, he is in the early stages of reuniting the stars of his films Step Brothers and Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby for a return to absurdist form. “I’m actually talking with [Will] Ferrell and John C. Reilly about doing a comedy about two guys who go down to defend America’s borders against the immigrants, and I’m pretty excited about it,” McKay tells fellow Oscar-nominated filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson in an interview for The Director’s Cut podcast. “We actually have Jesse Armstrong who wrote In The Loop—[he’s] delivering a draft, I think, next week.”

Silly as they may be, McKay’s comedies have almost always contained elements of social commentary, be it on gender relations, criticism of the 24-hour-news cycle, or a reflection of Bush-era America. So leaning into the nation’s current immigration debate seems like friendly territory for McKay. And, considering the cast and screenwriter, it’s a pretty safe assumption that this will not be a repeat of the comedy-adjacent tone of The Big Short.