Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby nearly had a sequel, the NASCAR comedy film's writer and executive producer has revealed.
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Adam McKay, who worked with Will Ferrell to create some extremely popular comedies in the 2000s, provided the information during an interview with Business Insider. He explained that the sequel would have followed Bobby after his successful return to the NASCAR Cup Series.
This time, the driver would have headed to another racing series.
"We did have an idea for Talladega Nights 2," McKay told Business Insider. "It was that Ricky Bobby was going to hook up with an F1 team, and he was going to race in Denmark or the Netherlands and feel like he's in a communist country because they have nationalized healthcare.
"So, along with struggling with how fast those F1 cars go, he would have clashed with far-left-leaning Europe compared to America."
The original Talladega Nights followed Bobby's rise from a lowly pit crew member to one of the biggest personalities in the NASCAR Cup Series. He became a driver who either saw checkers or wreckers while facing off with the stars of the early 2000s.
However, the situation changed when a hotshot F1 driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) came into the sport and took Bobby's thunder. Teammate Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly) then took Bobby's role on Dennit Racing after a crash.
Bobby and Girard first became bitter rivals before ultimately earning each other's respect. They crashed each other in the film's final race, and then they raced on foot to the finish line.
Since the film's release in 2006, it has become a prominent part of racing culture. Many drivers and fans have embraced Talladega Nights while constantly quoting its lines.
Some drivers have brought back schemes and firesuits from the film for races at Talladega Superspeedway.
The film's place in racing lore provided a foundation, so why didn't McKay and Ferrell make a sequel?
One reason is the amount of effort required to truly capture the NASCAR experience. They shot in front of live crowds at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and they filmed sequences under caution during live races. This was not a simple process.
"The only reason we didn't do it was it's a lot of work to shoot race car stuff," McKay said. "The reason we went and did Step Brothers next was we felt like, can we just go do comedy in a house?
"We were tired after Talladega Nights. It never got to the point where we wrote a treatment."
