Celebrity Mound

Ferrell will play a visiting branch manager over an arc of several episodes. NBC announced the casting Wednesday with the promise that Ferrell’s character will be “just as inappropriate” as Steve Carell’s Michael Scott.

Carell’s farewell is expected four episodes before the season finale of “The Office.” In preparation of his exit, NBC is bringing in high-profile guests, including “The Office” creator Ricky Gervais, reprising his role as David Brent.

Gervais will make a cameo in Thursday’s episode, which airs at 9 p.m. EST.

Director Adam McKay admitted Paramount Studios has not given their backing to the project, despite saying earlier this week the movie was close to filming.

Writing on twitter, he said: “So bummed. Paramount basically passed on ‘Anchorman 2′. Even after we cut our budget down. We tried.

“To all who asked: no we can’t do ‘Anchorman 2′ at another studio. Paramount owns it.”

The first movie ‘Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy’ – which starred Will Ferrell as the titular TV news host – was a huge success upon its release in 2004, grossing $90 million worldwide.

McKay recently revealed all of the original film’s stars – including Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd – were on board to make the sequel and had cut their salaries to do so.

He said: “Graciously, Steve and Paul and everyone agreed to cut their price to come and do the sequel, which you don’t see very often in Hollywood – and cut their price substantially.

“But even with that, it’s just a budgetary thing with Paramount in terms of how much they’ll give us to make it.”

Is Will Ferrell getting remarried?

No, but he appeared in a wedding announcement on Sunday.

The actor made a cameo in a couple’s wedding photo featured in the New York Times’ wedding section over the weekend.

Both Jessie Fuller and Peyton Rodgers are production assistants, and Rodgers happens to work on “The Other Guys,” an upcoming film starring Ferrell that’s been filming in New York.

In the wedding photo, Ferrell appears standing behind the happy couple.

The newlyweds met in March on the Upper West Side when they were both working as production assistants on “When in Rome”, due out in 2010.

Ferrell has been happily married to wife Viveca Paulin since 2000, and they are expecting their third child in January.

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Funnyman Will Ferrell and British actor Ewan McGregor on Wednesday headed a Forbes.com list of Hollywood’s most overpaid stars when looking at the financial returns of their movies.

Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey also made the top 10 tally of actors who cost more to hire than they appear to be worth at box offices.

Ferrell took first place largely due to the flop of his summer 2009 movie “Land of the Lost”, which Forbes said cost an estimated $100 million to make but earned just $65 million at box offices worldwide for movie studio Universal Pictures.

The movie followed a disappointing $43 million box office for Ferrell’s 2008 outing “Semi-Pro”, and $128 million for “Step Brothers”.

Using a formula that calculated the actor’s estimated salary on each film, including DVD and TV sales, compared to the film’s revenues from theater box offices and elsewhere, Forbes.com said that for every dollar Ferrell was paid, his films earned an average $3.29.

To create the list, the financial news website looked at Hollywood’s 100 biggest stars who had lead performances in at least three widely distributed movies in the last five years.

McGregor, best known for “Trainspotting” and his work in the “Star Wars” franchise, is not among Hollywood’s highest paid actors but has recently proved a poor investment, averaging a return of $3.75.

Cruise, considered one of the biggest players in Hollywood, came sixth on the list with a return on investment of $7.18. Forbes said he had benefited from deals where he took nothing up front in return for a portion of the box-office gross. The deal resulted in Cruise getting paid for films like “Lions for Lambs” even if the studio did not recoup its money.

Eddie Murphy commanded a high salary after the success of family comedies like “The Nutty Professor”. But his most recent films “Meet Dave” and “Imagine That” were box office duds, taking Murphy to fourth place for earning an average $4.43 for each dollar he was paid, Forbes.com said.

Forbes 10 Most Overpaid Stars were;

1. Will Ferrell ($3.29)

2. Ewan McGregor ($3.75)

3. Billy Bob Thornton ($4)

4. Eddie Murphy ($4.43)

5. Ice Cube ($4.77)

6. Tom Cruise ($7.18)

7. Drew Barrymore ($7.43)

8. Leonardo DiCaprio ($7.52)

9. Samuel Jackson ($8.59)

10. Jim Carrey ($8.62)