Adam McKay

 ( 20th-century American Screenwriters ) 

McKay attended Great Valley High School in Malvern, where he graduated in 1986. He then attended Penn State University for a year prior to transferring to Temple University, where he majored in English studies. McKay dropped out of Temple a semester-and-a-half before he was set to earn his bachelor's degree. He described it as "settling with an imaginary degree".

McKay is one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy group and a former performer at Chicago's IO Theater, where he was a member of the improv group, The Family, whose members included Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Neil Flynn, Miles Stroth, and Ali Farahnakian, as well as Child's Play Touring Theatre.

Shortly after leaving SNL, McKay teamed up with comedian Will Ferrell to form production company Gary Sanchez Productions and write the comedy films (2004), (2006), Step Brothers (2008), and The Other Guys (2010), all of which he also directed, produced and made in as an actor. Ferrell and McKay co-produced the HBO series Eastbound & Down.

McKay was one of the writers for the film The Campaign (2012), and produced the film Daddy's Home (2015), the latter of which reunited The Other Guys stars Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, and was directed by Sean Anders. McKay also rewrote the script for the Marvel Studios feature film Ant-Man, directed by Peyton Reed; McKay had initially been in talks to direct the film following Edgar Wright's departure, but opted not to out of respect for Wright. McKay also worked with Reed, Paul Rudd, Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer on Ant-Man and the Wasp to flesh out the story. He has also expressed interest in helming a Silver Surfer movie for Marvel Studios.

In April 2019, McKay and Ferrell announced that they were separating as producing partners but would continue producing all projects currently in development or in production at Gary Sanchez Productions. It was later revealed the reason for the split was because McKay cast John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss on the show , a role that Ferrell had coveted, without informing him.

McKay directed and co-wrote with Ferrell the George W. Bush Broadway show You're Welcome America. He produced the horror fiction-action film .

McKay directed the TV movie documentary Lifecasters (2013). He has directed a number of short films, including digital shorts for Saturday Night Live, and the short video "Good Cop, Baby Cop" for Funny or Die that stars his daughter Pearl. Among the other short films he has directed include The Procedure (2007) starring Will Ferrell, Willem Dafoe, and Andy Richter, Green Team (2008) starring Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and himself, and the K-Swiss commercial, Kenny Powers: The K-Swiss MFCEO (2011), starring Danny McBride as Kenny Powers from Eastbound & Down, which he co-produces with Ferrell and has also directed an episode of.

He directed and wrote the film adaptation of the Michael Lewis non-fiction book The Big Short, about the 2008 financial crisis, and the build-up of the financial and credit bubble. The film opened in limited release on December 11, 2015, expanded to wide release on December 23, 2015; the film starred Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work in the film, winning his first Academy Award in the latter category. In 2016, he and co-writer Charles Randolph received the USC Scripter Award for their screenplay.

In 2016, he became attached to the superhero film Irredeemable based on the Irredeemable by Mark Waid. In November 2016, McKay began development of the biographical black comedy Backseat, about former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his rise to power, though the title was eventually changed to Vice. Starring Christian Bale as Cheney, the film was released in the United States on December 25, 2018, by Annapurna Pictures. Despite polarized reviews, Vice received eight nominations at the 91st Academy Awards, including the Best Picture and McKay's second nomination for Best Director, and won for Best Make-Up and Hairstyling.

In 2020, McKay began working on the Satire black comedy Don't Look Up, about two low level trying to convince the world that a catastrophic comet is coming. McKay wrote the script and produced the film for Netflix. Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Rob Morgan, Tyler Perry, Meryl Streep, and Cate Blanchett star in the film. It received a limited theatrical release in December 2021, before streaming on Netflix later in the month. The film received four nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

McKay was set to work with Jennifer Lawrence for the biographical film Bad Blood, about entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, and based on the book . Originally set to be produced by Legendary Pictures and released by Universal Pictures, in December 2021, the project was picked up by Apple Studios.Multiple sources:

• In November 2022, however, Lawrence left the project due to not wanting to copy Amanda Seyfried's performance in The Dropout. The current status of the project is unknown.

In March 2023, it was revealed that McKay's next project would be titled Average Height, Average Build, a political satire focused on a serial killer. The film was set to star Robert Pattinson, Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr., Forest Whitaker, and Danielle Deadwyler. On April 30, 2023, it was announced the project had been acquired by Netflix. On December 4, 2023, it was announced that McKay had left the project to pursue a film on climate change, and the project was subsequently scrapped.