Adam McKay Details the Winning Time Casting Drama That Ended Will Ferrell Friendship - E! Online (2024)

While the real-life events that inspired HBO's new series Winning Timeis fascinating, it's the story behind the story that we're really interested in.

Ahead of the highly-anticipated drama'sMarch release, Adam McKayis spilling all the detailson how it led to hisrift with longtime collaborator and close friend Will Ferrell.

Their production company Gary Sanchez Productionsis to thank for some of the most iconic movies of the 'aughts—think:Talladega Nights,Step Brothers andAnchorman—arguably influencing filmmakers of the next generation. However, McKay started to follow a different pathin more recent years, directing political dramas likeVice,The Big Short and, most recently,Don't Look Up.

This was all well and good until McKay began to work onWinning Time,which is about Ferrell's favorite basketball team, the L.A. Lakers. Though there were reports that Ferrell wanted to play majority ownerJerry Buss, McKaytoldThe Hollywood Reporterin a new interview that "Will was good" withMichael Shannontaking on the role.

Around this time, Ferrell and McKay announced they were shuttering Gary Sanchez Productions, releasing a statement that they "will always work together creatively and always be friends. And we recognize we are lucky as hell to end this venture as such."

Then, instead of handing the part of Buss over to Ferrell, McKayturned toStep Brothers actor John C. Reillywith an offer to join the cast, explaining, "I told him, ‘We're in a weird spot here, but I'm directing the pilot and I think you'd destroy this.'"

For Reilly, this was the perfect opportunity."I'd been sitting at my kitchen table, thinking, ‘Man, I'm dead in the water, all this work, 80 movies, and I got nothing going on,' when I got the text from Adam," he told THR. But he felt obligated to give Ferrell a heads-up that he was taking the role, so he gave him a call.

Looking back, McKay admitted that he "f--ked up" by not reaching out to Ferrell beforehand. "It was at this weird moment where Will and I weren't exactly hugging each other, even though there was nothing that terrible and he called Will and said, ‘Hey, McKay just came to me with this,'" McKay recalled. "And Will was very hurt that I wasn't the one to call him, and I should have."

E! News reached out to Ferrell's rep for comment and didn't hear back.

Reilly, meanwhile, is remaining neutral, explaining to THR, "Will is one of my best friends, Adam is one of my best friends, I was delighted to get the job and that's all I really have to say."

In October, Ferrell addressed his and McKay's decision to go their separate ways, chalking it up to creative differences. "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,' " he told The Hollywood Reporter. "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."