Todd Phillips and the cast of The Hangover Part II were on hand in Los Angeles day for a press conference to promote the film's release next week, and as it inevitably does, the sequel question came up. But instead of hedging, the way you normally see directors and actors do in these situations, Phillips admitted that he does have an idea for The Hangover Part III, and that while he hasn't even run the idea past his actors yet, he knows where it will probably take the series. Here's the key quote, as reported by Coming Soon:
"Obviously we always envisioned it as a trilogy. The third would be very much a finale and an ending... I haven't discussed it with these actors yet. [It would] not follow the same template, but is very much a new idea."
The idea of "obviously" envisioning a comedy as part of a trilogy is a little bizarre, since there are very, very few examples of successful comedy trilogies and there's nothing in the original Hangover that looks like they're really setting things up for a sequel (except maybe the way things leave off with Heather Graham, but in The Hangover Part II Stu is marrying someone else). It makes sense for Phillips to be thinking about a third film at this point, since if the new one is a success Warner Bros. is obviously going to ask him for it. And it's also a relief to see him saying now, before anyone even knows if The Hangover Part II will be a hit, that three is the limit-- I think the last thing anyone wants to see is them pulling a Pirates of the Caribbean, building a new film around a single character and making us all regret liking the first one to begin with.
