Powered by the same system of interlocking cogs that recently began the clockwork creation of Yogi Bear 2, this weekend’s record-breaking, $135 million haul for The Hangover Part II has already set a sequel in motion, with The Wrap reporting that Part II co-writer Craig Mazin has been officially hired to begin mapping out a third film. And we do mean mapping out: Part II relied so heavily on simply transposing the first film to a different location, surely Part III won’t mess with that formula—especially not when that formula netted the film a cool $135 million critic-negating dollars. And indeed all signs already point to the crazy, unbelievable thing that happened to Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis in Las Vegas and that then happened all over again in Bangkok will happen yet a third time in Amsterdam, a change of scenery so safely predictable, you can close your eyes and imagine it now, only to open them again and find your autonomous arm already attempting to hand over your debit card to a phantom box office.
Of course, the Amsterdam plot is just the speculation of cast members, and to their credit, both director Todd Phillips and Mazin have said they want something different this time: Phillips told Vulture that he had a “deadly serious” idea that would involve neither a wedding nor a night no one can remember, while Mazin said to Badass Digest that he’d like to see the series end with fourth wheel Justin Bartha in a cemetery, staring at the graves of every single person in his life. But with franchise-mad Warner Bros. studio head Jeff Robinov saying publicly he wants a fourth film, something tells us they may meet some resistance against the grinding gears of the industry.