Todd Phillips, who’s currently one of Hollywood’s top comedy directors, has now lined up his next two movies. Not surprisingly after the massive success of his movie The Hangover, he’s officially signed up for The Hangover 2, which is being fast-tracked by Warner. While the studio and stars have been talking like that film will go into production incredibly quickly (the sequel script was commissioned from Phillips and Scot Armstong before the first film came out, based on encouraging test screenings), they might have to hang on for a bit as Phillips has decided to slip in Due Date before going full steam ahead with the Hangover follow-up.
However Due Date isn’t a million miles away from Hangover – in fact it sounds remarkably similar – and indeed it again teams Phillips with Zach Galifianakis. He’ll play the best friend of an expectant father, who has to race across America in order to get back home in time for the birth of his child. The movie is due to start filming this autumn, with a release date already being set for early June next year, again following in The Hangover’s footsteps.
The Hangover 2 now won’t start filming until next year, for a summer 2011 release.
Interestingly Phillips has recently been talking to Variety about how his deal for The Hangover has paid off big time. As he wanted to cast little known names Bradley Cooper, Ed Helm and Galifianakis in the movie, the studio forced him to gamble on getting his salary from the movie’s box office, rather than taking the money upfront. He’s now due to be paid 15% of the total revenue for the film, which should stretch into the tens of millions of dollars – Variety is estimating around $35 million!