Will Ferrell has an idea for Step Brothers 2

The comedian and director Adam McKay have been carefully considering whether to pursue a sequel

If there's a crown out there to be won for the most underrated comedy of the 2000s so far, Step Brothers seems destined to step up to the plate.

Despite a fairly flat initial release - in fact, the late Roger Ebert was so unimpressed by the film's man-child comedic antics that it sent him into a personal crisis, declaring in his review, "all about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves" - it's been slowly growing as a cult favourite.

Joaquin Phoenix declared his love for the comedy in an interview with Esquire in 2013, revealing: "I watch Step Brothers more than any other f*cking movie."

He'll be pleased, then, to learn that Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay have been working on potential ideas for a sequel, tracking the continuing adventures of stepbrothers Dale (John C. Reilly) and Brennan (Ferrell), who ended the film on the verge of competent adulthood.

Ferrell told New York Daily News: "We talked about Step Brothers and then Adam and I got sidetracked with other things. We had a whole story where John and I follow our parents to live in a retirement community and try to convince them that we earned the right to retire as well."

"The sequel thing is so funny because, we decided obviously to go down the road with Anchorman, and we made what I though was a great sequel, really funny," he added. "The entertainment industry and fans beg you, and beg you, and beg you for sequels and then you make it and you definitely have a fraction that’s like, ‘Well, not as good as the first one.'"

"So I guess it’s a catch-22. It’s a nice catch-22, because people love the movies in the first place," he added. So certainly the sequel's being considered, but it's clear there's some hesitation there. Keep your fingers crossed (or not, depending on how you feel about such things).

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