Adam McKay Details Casting Drama That Ended Will Ferrell Friendship

Looking back, McKay admitted that he “f–ked up” by not reaching out to Ferrell beforehand. “It was at this weird moment where Will and I weren’t exactly hugging each other, even though there was nothing that terrible and he called Will and said, ‘Hey, McKay just came to me with this,'” McKay recalled. “And Will was very hurt that I wasn’t the one to call him, and I should have.”

E! News reached out to Ferrell’s rep for comment and didn’t hear back.

Reilly, meanwhile, is remaining neutral, explaining to THR, “Will is one of my best friends, Adam is one of my best friends, I was delighted to get the job and that’s all I really have to say.”

In October, Ferrell addressed his and McKay’s decision to go their separate ways, chalking it up to creative differences. “Adam was like, ‘I want to do this, and this, and this’; he wanted growth and a sphere of influence, and I was just like, ‘I don’t know, that sounds like a lot that I have to keep track of,’ ” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “To me, the potential of seeing a billboard, and being like: ‘Oh, we’re producing that?’ I don’t know. … At the end of the day, we just have different amounts of bandwidth.”