In all fairness, they didn’t really know him then. ( Laughs.) But Warners wanted to see him audition. ZACH GALIFIANAKIS: That’s not true! I was in Canada, and I flew down for an audition, and I was like, “This is going to be a waste of money because I’m not good at auditions.” ![]() I’ve always been a huge fan of Zach, but Zach didn’t want to come out and meet with me. Then we thought it’d be so much more awkward if it was an older brother who’s still at home. Quite honestly, we were writing the brother-in-law as a younger brother they had to take along with them - like a Jonah Hill character instead of Zach. PHILLIPS: When we were writing, we did have in mind. I remember checking in, and they said, “Yeah, budgetary problems they’re going to need a name.” And then that was it - I didn’t hear from him. There Will Be Blood was coming out soon, so we exchanged e-mails and went to see There Will Be Blood together at Paramount. So I actually thought there’s no way in hell I’d get this role because he’s sort of the alpha, really cool guy. Then I sat down, and he was very nice and cool as hell with the sunglasses. I auditioned for Starsky & Hutch with Vince Vaughn years earlier, and I remember thinking Todd was the coolest guy in the world. ĬOOPER: I had heard that Ed Helms had one of the three roles. Warners agreed, and the arrangement ultimately would earn Phillips nearly $70 million from the first Hangover. Phillips’ CAA agent Todd Feldman and attorney Warren Dern came back with a different proposal: The director would forgo his fee almost entirely in exchange for what sources say is a 16 percent stake in the film. and co-financier Legendary Pictures insisted that the film’s mid-$40 million budget be trimmed and Phillips’ $6.5 million directing fee be cut in half (with the rest paid only if the movie was a success). After Paul Rudd and Jack Black (among others) passed, Phillips focused on lesser-known actors. Once the script was finished, Helms, co-starring on NBC’s The Office, first was cast as everyman dentist Stu. We kind of went backward, like, what would be the craziest thing you could wake up to? A tiger? Well, why would a tiger be there? Siegfried & Roy? Nah, that feels typical. Jeremy Garelick and I sat down in my house and just started writing. What follows is an edited oral history of one of Hollywood’s most improbable success stories.īRADLEY COOPER: The characters were different in the original script. THR then reached out to others intimately involved - from Warners film studio head Jeff Robinov to retired boxer Mike Tyson - for their personal stories. To coincide with the final film, The Hollywood Reporter invited Phillips and his three lead actors to sit down together for a candid (and often raunchy) discussion. The third and final installment - which ditches the blacked-out mystery concept and adds Melissa McCarthy as a love interest for Galifianakis - hits U.S. Its 2011 sequel outgrossed the original with $586.8 million. ![]() The first Hangover, made for only about $35 million with barely-known stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, shocked Hollywood by grossing $467.5 million worldwide in 2009. What followed is the most successful R-rated comedy franchise of all time. Fortunately, he still had an overall deal at Warner Bros., which in October 2007 snapped up the script - now titled The Hangover. At the time, Phillips’ Starsky & Hutch and School for Scoundrels recently had disappointed, and he had left Borat during shooting because of creative differences. But Lucas and Moore wrote the script anyway and slipped it to fellow CAA client Todd Phillips. New Line Cinema executives loved the idea but were dead set on that title and couldn’t secure rights, so they passed. In 2007, screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore came up with a novel pitch: a bachelor party comedy that would play out as a mystery, with increasingly bizarre reveals leading to the location of the missing groom. This story first appeared in the May 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
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