Why was the decision made to change the leads from kids to Danny McBride and Anna Friel?
Ferrell: We just thought that would give up a better platform for the comedy. Instead of having my character kind of saddled with these two kids, it just seemed like there would be more opportunity with the character Danny brought to life and to have the potential of a love interest and that sort of thing. How did Brad Silberling get involved? Ferrell: I’ve known Brad for a long time and I did this movie, The Suburbans, with Amy Brenneman, his wife, a long time ago. It was really fun to get to know him on a professional level. I’m a fan of his work. When we were meeting with potential directors, he immediately set himself apart. He had so much knowledge about how to shoot this film. We were so impressed by how he had the whole thing laid out. We were looking at more comedy guys at first who didn’t necessarily have a handle on a movie of this scope, but in the end I think we made the right decision. Brad was okay with anything we wanted to throw in comedically and he’s got a better sens
