Todd Phillips Says ‘Hangover 2’ Is Half Finished

Here’s a soft, warmed-over kind of report today if you’re interested on the status of “The Hangover 2.” Director Todd Phillips — who co-wrote some of his old classic comedies (“Old School”), but did not write this year’s frat-com classic — says the sequel to the Vegas-set bachelor party comedy is half-finished, will reunite the three leads (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Galifinakis), but won’t recycle the same setting or concept.

“You always have those days when you say, ‘If we did another one, wouldn’t it be funny if…?’ Then once the movie tested so well, Warner Bros. came to me even before it was released and said, ‘Let’s do another one.’ What people loved about The Hangover was not Las Vegas or the bachelor party but these three characters. I think you can take those characters and put them in other situations, and you don’t need the sell of Vegas and a bachelor party and all that other stuff.”

Phillips is currently shooting the road-movie comedy “Due Date” with Robert Downey Jr., ‘Hangover’ break-out star Zach Galifianakis and Michelle Monaghan which is due in theaters in the fall of 2010. Presumably that means, “The Hangover 2” (or whatever it’s final title is) won’t hit theaters until at least 2011. “The Hangover” grossed a whopping $459 million worldwide and took $277 million domestically becoming the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever.