Background and career
Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American filmmaker. McKay began his career in the 1990s as a head writer for the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). After leaving SNL, McKay collaborated with comedian Will Ferrell on his comedy films in the 2000s such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), and The Other Guys (2010). Ferrell and McKay co-wrote and co-produced six television series and films, with McKay himself co-producing their website Funny or Die through their company, Gary Sanchez Productions. Aside from working with Ferrell, McKay wrote and directed the satirical films The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018), and Don't Look Up (2021). He won an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Critics' Choice Award for adapting the screenplay of The Big Short. In 2019, McKay founded the production company Hyperobject Industries.
Adam McKay was born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts and later Malvern, Pennsylvania by his mother, Sarah, a waitress, and his father, a musician. When McKay was seven his parents divorced. McKay attended Great Valley High School in Malvern, where he graduated in 1986. He then attended Penn State University for a year prior to transferring to Temple University, where he majored in English. McKay dropped out of Temple a semester-and-a-half before he was set to earn his bachelor's degree. He described it as "settling with an imaginary degree".
McKay studied under Del Close at The Second City and then joined The Second City Touring Company. He performed in one revue as a member of the Second City e.t.c. company and filled in on the Mainstage in the 79th Review before moving fully to the Mainstage for Second City's 80th revue, Piñata Full of Bees. The landmark show also featured Jon Glaser, Rachel Dratch, and Scott Adsit. McKay is one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy group and a former performer at Chicago's ImprovOlympic, where he was a member of the improv group, The Family, whose members included Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Neil Flynn, Miles Stroth, and Ali Farahnakian, as well as Child's Play Touring Theatre.
McKay originally auditioned for Saturday Night Live to be an onscreen performer, but did not make the cut. However, the scripts he submitted earned him a job as a writer in 1995. Within a year, McKay became head writer at age 28, a position he held until 1999. He also directed a number of short films for the show, including the original SNL Digital Shorts. McKay encouraged his Second City friend Tina Fey to submit some of her scripts to Saturday Night Live, and she later succeeded him as head writer. Despite no longer being head writer, McKay would remain at SNL as a regular writer until 2001, where he would depart from the series, after six years. In his final two years of tenure at SNL, he requested and earned a credit as "Coordinator of Falconry", an honorific credit. Shortly after leaving SNL, McKay teamed up with comedian Will Ferrell to form production company Gary Sanchez Productions and write the comedy films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), and The Other Guys (2010), all of which he also directed, produced and made cameo appearances in as an actor. Ferrell and McKay co-produced the HBO series Eastbound & Down. McKay was one of the writers for the film The Campaign (2012), and produced the film Daddy's Home (2015), the latter of which reunited The Other Guys stars Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, and was directed by Sean Anders. McKay also rewrote the script for the Marvel Studios feature film Ant-Man, directed by Peyton Reed; McKay had initially been in talks to direct the film following Edgar Wright's departure, but opted not to out of respect for Wright. McKay also worked with Reed, Paul Rudd, Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer on Ant-Man and the Wasp to flesh out the story. He has also expressed interest in helming a Silver Surfer movie for Marvel Studios.
He produced the films Land of the Lost (2009), The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009), The Virginity Hit (2010), Casa de Mi Padre (2012), Bachelorette (2012), Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012), The Campaign (2012), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Tammy (2014), Welcome to Me (2014), Get Hard (2015), Sleeping with Other People (2015), Daddy's Home (2015), and The Boss (2016). In addition to Eastbound & Down, McKay has produced the television series Big Lake and Succession, whose pilot he directed, and the miniseries The Spoils of Babylon, and The Chris Gethard Show. In April 2019, McKay and Ferrell announced that they were separating as producing partners but would continue producing all projects currently in development or in production at Gary Sanchez Productions. It was later revealed the reason for the split was because McKay cast John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss on the show Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, a role that Ferrell had coveted, without informing him.
In 2019, McKay launched a new production company, Hyperobject Industries, which has a first look overall television deal with HBO and had a first-look feature deal at Paramount Pictures. Hyperobject Industries' first television project was an HBO pilot based on Jeff Pearlman's non-fiction book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s. McKay directed the pilot. More recently, McKay's Hyperobject Industries has a first look deal with Apple.
