Adam McKay

Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American screenwriter, producer and director.

Hyperobject Industries' first TV 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.

He 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 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.

McKay began his career as a head writer for the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2001.

However, the scripts he submitted earned him a job as a writer from 1995, and within a year McKay became head writer at age 27, a position he held until 2001.

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.

Though McKay was never an actual SNL cast member, he did make several on-camera appearances over the years and had a recurring role as an obnoxious audience member "Keith" who would often shout insults at the celebrity hosts during their opening monologue.

Following his departure, he rose to fame in the 2000s for his collaborations with comedian Will Ferrell, co-writing his comedy films Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), Step Brothers (2008), and The Other Guys (2010).

Ferrell and McKay later co-wrote and co-produced numerous television series and films, with McKay himself co-producing their website Funny or Die through their company Gary Sanchez Productions.

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 has directed, and co-written with Will Ferrell, the films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010), and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013).

He has directed an "alternate film" about Ron Burgundy that is considered a companion to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) entitled Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004), which is made up mostly of alternative takes, deleted scenes, and scrapped sub-plots from the original film strung together with a narrative.

McKay directed and co-wrote with Ferrell the George W. Bush Broadway show You're Welcome America.

He produced the horror-action film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Among the other short films he has directed include The Procedure (2007) starring Will Ferrell, Willem Dafoe, and Andy Richter, Green Team (2008) starring Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and himself, and the K-Swiss commercial, Kenny Powers: The K-Swiss MFCEO (2011), starring Danny McBride as Kenny Powers from Eastbound & Down, which he co-produces with Ferrell and has also directed an episode of.

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 TV series Big Lake and Succession, whose pilot he directed, and the miniseries The Spoils of Babylon, and The Chris Gethard Show.

McKay began venturing into more dramatic territory in the 2010s, writing and directing satirical films such as The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018), and Don't Look Up (2021).

For each of these, McKay received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and for the scripts in both the Adapted and Original screenplay categories.

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 & 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.

McKay directed the TV movie documentary Lifecasters (2013).

He has directed a number of short films, including digital shorts for Saturday Night Live, and the short video "Good Cop, Baby Cop" for Funny or Die that stars his daughter Pearl.

In 2019, McKay founded the production company Hyperobject Industries.

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.

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 due to the fact that McKay cast John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss on the show Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, a role that Ferrell wanted, without letting Ferrell know.

In 2019, McKay launched a new production company, Hyperobject Industries, which has a first look overall TV deal with HBO and had a first-look feature deal at Paramount Pictures.