Screen Rant » the hangover

[SR Pick]: Bill For ‘The Hangover’ Bachelor Party

Paul Young — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:34:16 +0000

This summer’s breakout hit has to be The Hangover. Everyone expected it to be funny and do well at the box office, but no one expected it to eclipse the $400 million worldwide mark. In case you didn’t know (or couldn’t guess), The Hangover 2 is already filming and planned for a Memorial Day 2011 release.

The film revolved around a group of four guys who head to Vegas for a bachelor party and after a night of raucous activities, can’t find the bachelor, have a baby to take care of and a tiger in their bathroom. Needless to say, all the pieces come together at the end of the film but have you ever thought to yourself “Man! How much would a night like that cost?”

I know my bachelor party was not quite that elaborate. I just had 4 of my best buds over to the house; we smoked cigars and played spades until 3 a.m. then fell asleep. Total cost was $60 for the cigars. There were no strippers, drinking or hotel rooms and for sure no tigers; all of those items would have driven the cost up. But by how much?

Surely Vegas strippers and beer can’t be that expensive. As for hotel rooms, William “The Priceline Negotiator” Shatner is always telling me I can get a last-minute Vegas hotel room for under $100, and since thousands of people go to Vegas to get married every year, how expensive can that really be?

Well, a few weeks ago we posted a fantastic graph by Jack Satin, who claims to be everything Vegas, showing the best and worst bets on movie involving Vegas in the story. Today he has put together a receipt with a total estimated cost for the entire Vegas trip, including discounts, for the four guys from The Hangover. I sort of wonder how he managed to get a cost for a tiger, the GHB and getting tasered.

Either way, it’s a great list and the receipt basically runs you back through the movie. I found myself chuckling while reading it as I remembered each scene of the movie related to the cost.

How much did your bachelor/bachelorette party cost and do you have some wacky stories or pictures you’d be willing to share?

The Hangover comes out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Copy December 15, 2009. Enjoy the picture below:

Source: Jack Satin

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GROAN… Summer 2009 Sets Box Office Record

Kofi Outlaw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:55:02 +0000

So we just finished telling you why the Summer of 2009 was the season of bad movies. Now, as if to validate our point (sarcasm alert) Variety has just announced that the Summer of ‘09 has set a new record as the highest grossing summer of all time at the U.S. domestic box office.

So there you have it, folks, it’s official: Hollywood has no reason to ever hire good writers, produce good scripts, or offer us anything better at the multiplex than what Michael Bay can half-envision.

Awesome.

The numbers of course tell a deeper tale than that, so if you’d like to find out just how the heck this summer managed to break the box office bank, here’s the breakdown:

Top earners for the season were Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($399.4 million), Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince ($294.3 million), and Disney/Pixar’s Up ($289.6 million). We all know why the franchise players made bank (it certainly wasn’t because the newest installments were great films in and of themselves) and Pixar is a proven brand that happened to offer a truly exceptional film. Other crap sequels that helped fill the piggy bank: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ($193.3 million), Angels and Demons ($133.4 million) and Night at the Museum 2 ($176.5 million)

There were also some unexpected boosts to the box office this year, thanks to Warner Bros.’ breakout hit The Hangover ($270.2 million) and the Sandra Bullock / Ryan Reynolds rom-com, The Proposal ($160.2 million).

Rounding out the Summer ‘09 box office cash pile were reboots/relaunches of popular franchises. On that front you had Star Trek ($256.7 million), Wolverine ($179 million), Terminator Salvation ($125.3 million) and G.I. Joe ($133.4 million and counting).

This really must be just a cruel joke being played by God, IMHO. You have he Writers Guild of America strike back in 2007, during which the scripts for a lot of these films were forced to go into production half-cooked (or less), and what’s the moral of the story? What’s the grand example that the talented writers in Hollywood can hold up to the studios? “Hey, you better treat us right, otherwise we’ll stop working and you’ll end up making more money than you ever have before!”

Pretty short soapbox to be standing on.

It’s also arguable evidence of the (snooty) stereotype that the average American moviegoer has the cerebral capacity of a third grader. Just looking at the numbers I have to wonder just how so many people could be so entertained by so much crap. It once again raises a question one of our readers put to us back in June, after the release of Transformers 2: Is there really a difference between movies like The Dark Knight and TF2 when both films start pulling in crazy bank? How much does quality count?

It was an intriguing topic before, but after hearing that the Summer of 2009 will go down as a the “best” summer at the movies ever (from a profit standpoint), it’s now a raging debate. Expect Screen Rant’s post about it soon.

Source: Variety

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After ‘The Hangover’: More R-Rated Comedies on the Way

Jacob Waldman — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:13:54 +0000

With the unavoidable success of the raunchy, R-rated comedy The Hangover, Hollywood sees an opportunity that it’s not ashamed to exploit irrespective of the consequences, like John and Kate’s eight coattail riders. Let’s look at this from a purely business perspective: The Hangover cost a touch over $35 million to make, and so far its raked in $380 million. That’s like a million percent return on investment, or something; any lemonade-stand-entrepreneur can see that this is the bandwagon to jump on. And jumped on Hollywood has.

Up to bat after The Hangover comes Lionsgate’s announced project, One Night Stan, which is in the works and penned by Josh Friedlander, who previously wrote the scripts Pictures of You (which clung to the bottom of the 2007 Black List of hottest Hollywood screenplays with the requisite 2 votes), and Suicide Blondes (we’d never heard of it either).

Set to direct One Night Stan are the guys who brought you the brilliant (IMHO) Harold & Kumar films, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. The film follows (you guessed it) Stan, on the night before his wedding when he learns that his wife’s sexual past is littered with more bodies than his own. In a fantastical turn of events that never happens in real life (take my word), Stan procures his soon-to-be-wife’s permission to play catch up for one night, and hilarity ensues.

Hayden and Schlossberg

The next up in the pipeline is The Best Thing About Pam Rooney, a title that conjures up images of I Love You, Beth Cooper, only starring Andy Rooney (at least in my head). Writers Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien sold their manuscript to Universal, and Jonah Hill has jumped on board to produce and star, though a director has not yet been found.

Trying to find any details on this film is like trying to find leftovers at Kirstie Alley’s house. However, the film has continuously been dubbed a “high-concept romantic comedy”, which is ambiguous enough to leave plenty of opportunity for hit or miss antics – though it does bode well (for me) that the producers, who are also the writers, also produced the Judd Apatow comedy, Funny People.

(Non-Apatow) R-rated comedies seem to be the Tickle Me Elmo of cinema right now, which is appropriately prophetic, given what happened to Tickle Me Elmo: It was hot for a while, and once Fisher Price realized what it had on its hands, it practically flooded the market and ruined it for me everyone. And don’t think other toy-makers didn’t jump on the epileptic-plush-doll bandwagon behind Elmo – just like Lionsgate and Hill are doing. Even if they are only the first to make their intentions publicly known, its just a matter of time before philandering-tickle-me-hungover-Pam-Rooney dolls are everywhere. So get while the gettin’s good.

One Night Stan and The Best Thing About Pam Rooney are both currently in development and don’t have release dates.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, First Showing

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: June 21, 2009

Niall Browne — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:49:25 +0000

This week:

First there’s The Proposal and then there’s The Hangover; Moneyball gets thrown a curve-ball; Scream 4 isn’t Neve Campbell’s favorite scary movie; it looks like The A-Team won’t be Common and there’s an up and coming Red Dawn.

Box Office

Sandra Bullock scored the biggest opening of her career with The Proposal. The romantic comedy which co-stars Ryan Reynolds grossed $34 million over the weekend.

The Hangover remained a popular choice and moved into the runner-up spot with a weekend take of $26 million. With $152 million in the bank after three weeks, it looks like this is going to be a hugely profitable film and franchise for Warner Bros.

Up took in another $21 million from Friday to Monday giving the Pixar film a mighty $224 million tally.

Jack Black’s Year One opened a disappointing third this weekend with a gross of $20 million. It’ll need good legs to see a decent profit.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 stole $11 million from audiences over the weekend giving the Denzel Washington/ John Travolta thriller a total gross of $43 million.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian took in another $7 million giving the Ben Stiller comedy a stellar $155 million.

The interstellar Star Trek took just under $5 million to give the film a $239 million total tally.

Land of the Lost’s total now stands at $43 million after taking almost $4 million over the weekend. Not a good total for a film that cost a reported $150 million.

Eddie Murphy’s Imagine That dropped 43% from last weekend to $3 million. The film now has a terrible total of $11 million.

Terminator Salvation rounds out the top ten with $3 million. The Christian Bale film now has a total of $119 million.

Movie News

1. Columbia Pictures has scrapped production of the Steven Soderbergh directed, Brad Pitt starring, Moneyball – even though the film was due to start shooting on Monday!

Apparently when Steve Zaillian handed in the latest draft last week it wasn’t what studio head Amy Pascal had expected and she got cold feet on the film due to the $50 million budget. The sports drama has now been put into turnaround in the hope that another studio decides to make it.

According to Variety

“Moneyball is based on the bestselling Michael Lewis book about Billy Beane (Pitt), the former phenom who undermined his playing career by taking a big paycheck before he was ready, who resurfaced as Oakland A’s general manager who found success fielding competitive teams for low cost, compared to the payrolls of league rivals like the New York Yankees.”

Source: Variety

2. It’s looking like Scream 4 will not star Neve Campbell.

Franchise creator Kevin Williamson twittered:

“Trying to figure out a Sid-less scenario. She won’t do it. This sucks.”

David Arquette and Courtney are in negotiations to return.

There’s still no news on whether Wes Craven will return to direct.

Source: Ace Showbiz

3. Common was mooted as a possible candidate to play B.A Baracas in the big screen version of The A-Team. Looks like they’ll have to find another actor to step into Mr. T’s shoes.

The actor-rapper has signed on to the Queen Latifah sports film Just Wright.

Considering that the film starts shooting in July, it looks like he’ll be unable to join Liam Nesson and Bradley Cooper in Joe Carnahan’s film.

Source: Variety

4. Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck and Adrianne Palicki have joined the cast of MGM/UA’s Red Dawn remake. The new version is rumored to feature an invasion of Chinese troops on U.S. soil, instead of Russians.

Dan Bradley will direct the film that is set to open on September 24, 2010

Source: Hitfix

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

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Movie News Wrap Up: May 8, 2009

Niall Browne — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:23:02 +0000

This week:

Will Ferrell has a Hangover while the box office is UP; Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway do Drugs; Mary-Kate Olsen, Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens are Beastly; Sigourney Weaver returns to aliens; Lemony Snicket gets animated and Roberts and Bardem Eat.

Pixar’s UP stayed on top of the box office with a second weekend gross of $44 million. With great reviews and $137 million already in the bank, it looks like UP will be one of the biggest hits of the summer season.The R-rated comedy The Hangover opened strong in second place with a weekend take of $43 million. With a sequel already in development, it looks like a weekend that Warner Bros. doesn’t want to forget.

Speaking of hangovers – Will Ferrell’s Land of the Lost opened to a pretty lackluster $19 million. Looks like the films chances of turning a profit are history. [NOTE: Parents Beware, Land of the Lost is not for kids. Though it's been advertised that way, the movie is full of adult humor.]

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian banked another $14 million giving the Ben Stiller family comedy a total of $127 million.

Star Trek amassed another $8 million for a grand total of $222 million. It looks like it might cling-on (geddit?) to the top ten for another couple of weeks.

Terminator Salvation finally crossed the $100 million marker after taking $8 million over the weekend. Although the domestic gross is low compared to the previous two entries in the franchise, the international openings for the film read higher than T3. A sequel should be on the way if the accountants are happy.

Drag Me to Hell fell down the charts with a second weekend take of $7 million. With $28 million in the bank so far, this has to be a disappointment for Sam Raimi.

Angels & Demons raked in another $6 million giving the Tom Hanks film a $116 million total gross. Again, international sales are strong and because of this we might see a sequel – but it’ll have a cheaper production cost that will probably be at the expense of Hanks’ and Ron Howard’s participation.

My Life in Ruins and Dance Flick round out the top ten while Wolverine took another $1.8 million giving the Hugh Jackman franchise film a total of $174 million.

Movie News

1. Brokeback Mountain duo Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway are set to reunite in Love And Other Drugs.

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

“Gyllenhaal will play the salesman, who begins a relationship with a woman who has Parkinson’s (Hathaway) while on one of his sales calls. Their love story plays out in the political and social context of the time.”

Sounds like a barrel of laughs.

Director Ed Zwick (Defiance) hopes to start shooting in the fall.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

2. Mary-Kate Olsen, Alex Pettyfer and High School Musical’s Vanessa Hudgens will star in Beastly a modern teen retelling of Beauty and the Beast:

“Olsen’s character places a curse on a handsome egocentric young man, to be portrayed by Pettyfer, who’s physically transformed into everything he despises.”

The Daniel Barnz directed film starts shooting in Montreal on June 13th.

Source: Variety

3. Sigourney Weaver has signed up to star in two new comedies.

Weaver has joined the cast of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s alien-comedy Paul in an unknown role. The Greg Mottola film details the story of two science fiction fans who discover an alien near Area 51.

In You Again the actress will star opposite Kristen Bell. According to Variety:

“Bell will play a young woman who returns home for her brother’s wedding and is horrified to find he’s marrying her high school nemesis. Weaver will play the bride’s filthy-rich aunt.”

Weaver will next be seen a low-budget science fiction film directed by a first-timer named James Cameron. The film is Avatar.

Source: Variety
4. Brad Siberling has been taking up a Lemony Snicket sequel while he has been out doing the press rounds for Land of The Lost.

Speaking to IESB, Siberling said a sequel to the 2004 Jim Carrey-starrer may be on the cards but due to the time lag it would appear that the film will more than likely be animated (stop-motion being the most likely option).

Jim Carrey may still be involved if the film ever materializes.

Source: IESB.net

5. Javier Bardem is negotiations to join Julia Roberts in the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love.

“Roberts plays the author, and Bardem will play Felipe, the man Gilbert meets and falls in love with on the final leg of a journey of self-discovery that began with the end of her marriage.”

Ryan Murphy will direct the film that is being produced by Brad Pitt.

Bardem is also on Oliver Stone’s wish list for Wall Street 2.

Source: Variety

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

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The Hangover Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:58:57 +0000

Short version: Who would have thought? The Hangover is a crude, crass comedy that manages to be smart at the same time – oh, and funny as hell.

Screen Rant reviews The Hangover

When you start laughing about 30 seconds into a movie, that’s usually a good sign.

The plot of The Hangover is very simple: Three buddies (and one tag-along) head to Las Vegas to celebrate the impending marriage of one of their own with a bachelor party weekend. They get so incredibly blasted on the night of their arrival that they don’t remember a single thing that happened – of course maximum mayhem ensued during the evening, and they must piece together because the groom-to-be has gone missing.

Now I’m pretty finicky when it comes to comedies, especially the R-rated variety. “Stupid-funny” doesn’t work for me at all, so based on some of what I’d seen in the marketing I was a bit concerned I was possibly in for some vulgar, dumb humor. While The Hangover is certainly vulgar and not for everyone, I found it to be far from stupid. The dialog and characters are brilliant, and had me laughing throughout most of the film.

We’ve got a great cast of characters – Bradley Cooper as Phil, the handsome, smooth talker of the group, Ed Helms as Stu Price – the dentist who keeps reminding people he’s a doctor, and Zach Galifianakis who steals the movie as Alan, the future brother in law of Doug (Justin Bartha). In addition we have Stu’s insane yuppie girlfriend, Heather Graham gorgeous as the old stand by “hooker with a heart of gold,” Jeffrey Tambor as the future father-in-law and Ken Jeong as “Mr. Chow.”

I don’t usually list so many actors, but they all did such a great job that I just had to give them all a shout. While Jeffrey Tambor had a small role, he’s just great at chewing the scenery even with just a look and not a lot of screen time. Ken Jeong was priceless as the Asian gangster, absolutely hysterical – but the stand out performance had to be Zach Galifianakis as the “not quite all there” member of the troupe. He plays the role as almost mildly retarded, and the lines he delivers and the way he says them are probably on their own enough to make you want to see the movie again.

There are great bits throughout the entire film, and while it does bog down for a bit about 3/4 of the way through, but it regains its footing soon enough to wrap up with a really great ending. However I loved how they handled the backtracking to figure out just what happened the night before – they didn’t resort to flashbacks or fancy back and forward time-jumps… we just hung with the guys real-time and discovered the pieces to the puzzle along with them. So not only do we have great comedy, as a bonus we get a mystery to unravel as well.

Rest assured this movie earns its R-rating so for the love of Pete leave the kids at HOME for this one. If you can’t afford a babysitter this week, save a couple of bucks a day and wait until next week to see it. What really blew my mind was the fact that the most extreme scenes in the movie actually don’t appear until the credits are rolling. I won’t give away anything other than to say if you’re offended by sexually explicit material, you’d better leave just as the credits begin to roll. Frankly I’d like to know how the hell they got the very last thing that appears past the MPAA and retained an R rating.

However if you’re into R-rated comedies and don’t mind crude and crass humor, The Hangover is not to be missed.

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Bradley Cooper Recruited Into The A-Team?

Rob Keyes — Mon, 18 May 2009 05:27:52 +0000

Rumors for the upcoming A-Team action film have been running rampant recently with speculation that Common (who’s in this week’s Terminator Salvation) is in talks to play the role made famous by Mr. T, B.A. Baracus, and Chris Pine as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck but instead wanting to play the crazy Capt. H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock.

Enter Bradley Cooper.

Bradley Cooper is an actor I love in everything he’s been in, from the Alias TV show to many supporting roles in big movies, might be a part of The A-Team now. You’ve probably seen his name floating around quite a bit recently with his upcoming comedy The Hangover set to open this summer and speculation that he is one of the lead candidates to play Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie.

Just a few hours ago, IESB reported exclusively that Bradley Cooper will be playing Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck in The A-Team.

What’s interesting is how they found this information out. Apparently, they had heard a rumor that he was in the running for the role a few weeks ago but had no confirmed source to run the story. Now, at the press junket for The Hangover this weekend in Vegas, IESB reporter Chris Goodson spoke with Cooper one-on-one in one of the hallways (with “a smuggled tape recorder”) and asked him directly if he was excited about playing the role in the movie, pretending as if it were officially announced already.

A surprised and unknowing Cooper replied:

“That’s out already!?”

Followed by laughter, where he then continued:

“Wow. Yeah…its Joe Carnahan’s. It’s very interesting. It’ll be cool. It will be cool see what…He’ll make a great movie out of it.”

It’s not officially confirmed yet but when he hear something, we’ll let you know.

As for the movie, the possible cast members we think are shoe-ins so far are awesome as well as the rumored candidates. I think this movie will make for a great action flick.

In the TV series, the role of Face was played by Dirk Benedict who you may also know for playing Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica series. Cooper seems to me like a great choice to play the role, especially with his resemblence when he’s supporting his longer hair.

What do you think of this news?

The A-Team will be directed by Joe Carnahan and should open in theaters some time next year.

Source: IESB

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ShoWest Update

Sabrina Cognata — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:54:29 +0000

For those not in the know, ShoWest is a convention for theater owners where studios pimp out their movies with the hopes of making a mark regarding their up and coming films. Yesterday, at ShoWest in Las Vegas studios decided to give one another a run for their money. Warner Bros. president Alan Horn showed clips of Terminator Salvation and the new Harry Potter. Both were things we’ve seen before and nothing particularly special.

Horn then introduced the trailer for the comedy The Hangover, which the audience seemed to really enjoy as they broke into laughter, and the action-comedy Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Jr. was there for the unveiling of the film’s trailer. He joked with the crowd and explained that he chose to do this film after the mega success of Iron Man. The trailer itself is said to be classic Guy Ritchie with a mix of action and comedy tied together with a certain supernatural element.

At the Disney panel, they announced that the new Tron film will be in 3D, as well as, asserting that the film will be called just “Tron.” In addition to that they showed the trailer that was originally brought to the public back at Comic-Con. They also dropped the news that Toy Story 1 & 2 will be rereleased in October for a limited engagement in 3D, as well as Beauty and the Beast, but it’s release date will be in February of 2010.

In total, Disney/Pixar have 17 theatrical 3D films planned for release between 2009 and 2012. Included on this list is Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, which will also be released on IMAX 3-D. They did not show a trailer for Alice In Wonderland, but showed stills from the film including the already seen photo of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and new shots of the Cheshire Cat and it’s smile oddly reminiscent of the Joker. Finally, we got a glimpse of the Queen of Hearts’ Castle, which happens to resemble the Disneyland Castle. Way to highlight the Disney iconic logo. However, the middle part of the castle is appropriately shaped in a giant heart.

Up was also shown again, as it has been at every major movie event for the past few months. At this point I have seen the first 45 minutes of Up more times than I have seen most of my favorite films. Still the film does not miss the mark. It continues to shine in a way that makes the story and characters both believable and relatable.

All in all, the footage shown at ShoWest has been pretty impressive. Perhaps that has something to do with the 3D wow factor or the fact that most of the movies being marketed there are already highly anticipated films with mega blockbuster potential.

What do you think? Which films are you excited to finally be hearing more about?

Sources: Collider, IESB.net, SuperHeroHype.com, HitFix, and AintItCool

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