Will Ferrell comedy to return to US and UK theatres with “763 new jokes”.

A “whole different version” of comedy sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is to be released in the US and UK on Feb 28 for one-week only.

The announcement, from Paramount Pictures and Gary Sanchez Productions, revealed there would be up to 763 entirely new jokes in the comedy, based around anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his 24-hour global news team.

The film will be rated R in the US and 15 in the UK, which was its original BBFC classification.

Writer-director Adam McKay said: “When my editor told me we had a whole different version of the movie that was more than two hours long with nearly 800 new jokes, I was shocked.

“But when Paramount said they were actually going to put it in theatres, I did a 1950’s spit take. If you’re a hardcore Anchorman fan, go see this. If you’re not, stay very far away.” 

The sequel to 2004’s cult film Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy was released on Dec 18, 2013 and has earned more than $170m at the worldwide box office to date.

The original also had an alternative version - Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie – but this was only released on DVD.