One of the world's biggest comedy stars has just released an entire film that he somehow managed to keep secret.
Will Ferrell has just released an entire 119-minute film, 'Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues', direct to iTunes, and absolutely nobody outside the film's tightknit crew saw it coming.
"I feel like right now people experience movies differently," Ferrell says in an intro video that precedes the film. "I felt like I don't want anybody to give the message when my movie is coming out. I just want this to come out when it's ready, and from me to my fans.
"I told my team I want to shoot a movie and put it all out in secret. Everyone thought I was crazy, but we're actually doing it. It's happening."
The level of subterfuge here is astonishing — not only did the film's core cast of Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Christina Applegate keep the secret, but so did guest stars Harrison Ford, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Greg Kinnear, and Blue Ivy Carter.
Ferrell said that the film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, had tried to sell him on all sorts of crazy marketing stunts — appearing in-character on talk shows and news broadcasts, writing a fake autobiography, posting a series of topical videos to YouTube, recording a novelty single with a buzz act like Robin Thicke, releasing a teaser trailer almost two years in advance of the film — but he rejected all of their suggestions, fearing they would compromise his "unguarded artistic statement".
"And, hey," Ferrell added, "it'll give people something besides that Beyoncé album to talk about. I feel like that thing's been everywhere lately, am I right?"
