Despite some claims to the contrary, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy was not a financial flop, in fact, it was quite the opposite. Working with a $26 million budget, the film grossed more than $90 million globally. The problem, however, is that the film made 94 percent of its box office take domestically, only making $5 million abroad. According to Adam McKay, this is the key reason why we likely never see an Anchorman 2.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it is the changing economy of the movie world that prevented the comedy from getting a sequel an immediate green-light. The article states that foreign markets now make up 68% of global film sales. The shift has occurred in recent years in large part to the falling home video market, which has declined 20 percent in the last two years. With that market failing, studios are putting more emphasis on global box office returns rather than just domestic returns. Said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, which put out the first McKay film, "We need to make movies that have the ability to break out internationally. That's the only way to make the economic puzzle of film production work today."

When I spoke with McKay a couple weeks ago he cited scheduling conflicts getting the team, which includes stars such as Will Ferrell, Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, back together. This story seems to suggest that everything just seemed to line up against the making of a second film. So what about Step Brothers, the other film that McKay suggested making a sequel for? Foreign totals made up 21.6% of the $128 million gross. Perhaps that's the magic number.