James at 2011-06-02 14:01:39:

Yeah, Todd Phillips called it a trilogy, which to me means Alan's getting married.

Not sure where they are going to get stakes tho -- You can't have Alan missing cause he's the comic relief. And Ed Helms owns the self deprecating humor in this series. Not sure what they are going to do.

In all honesty, I could watch these guys repeatedly lose Doug over and over again in multiple cities. I'm just sold on the concept/format.

@ Scott -- most successful sequels that live up to or surpass the original, are simply the original, only with slightly bigger stakes.

Lethal Weapon 2, Terminator 2, AlienS, Indiana Jones 3.

I think most people WANT the experience of the first movie. They just don't want it to be an exact clone -- they want new bits and pieces.

The one exception to this is... not STAR WARS because it was really conceived as three (ie it's not really a complete story without the reveal of Darth Vader), but...

TOY STORY

Toy Story found a way of giving multiple sequels the same feel as the original, that didn't simply repeat the beats of the original.

Maybe it's just because they found different ways to appeal to the child in us -- and as a series the three movies really are about different aspects of growing up. (And through serendipitous luck, are in order too) 1) Rivalry / Friendship 2) The girl 3) Literally, getting older.

Anyway, just some thoughts on sequels.

Nick Oleksiw at 2011-06-02 14:56:48:

They need to have Bradley Cooper get seriously f***ed up in this movie, to shake things up. Have the pretty boy be pretty ugly.

And please, please give Zach Galafinakis something else to do other than crazy one-liners. And who says this has to be a wedding? What other crazy adventure/events can lead to a Hangover?!

Scott at 2011-06-02 14:59:40:

James: I think you're right re sequels. And such a sea change in 25 years. It used to be Hwood acted on the assumption that a sequel was successful if it did 50% of the business as the original. Nowadays they aim to get 100% or more from a sequel. I wonder if that says something about us and stories, how nowadays we long to see familiar characters in familiar situations more than only a few decades ago.

Re the Toy Story franchise: Pixar was well aware of the growing up dynamic of the three movies. You can read some posts I have about that here, here, and here.

Just to be clear, I have nothing against The Hangover franchise. If you Google search this site, you will see that when the project was announced in the trades, I stated it was one of the best comedic premises I had seen in years. My thought from the OP is to note the unique challenge faced by the writer to make it 'similar but different.'

Nate Winslow at 2011-06-02 16:18:30:

Lol at "keeping the story secret."

Cat's out of the bag, guys. When they were doing that for #2 I was pleasantly surprised. "Wow, even though they have a guaranteed blockbuster, it looks like they're actually trying to take the story somewhere new."

...two years later, I now completely understand why they kept it a secret. If I had known I'd be watching a beat-for-beat remake, I would have done something incredibly productive with those two hours of my life instead.

Adam at 2011-06-03 00:32:30:

I was so disappointed by Hangover 2 that I'm not sure I want to hear this. I just pray and pray and pray and pray that they will come up with some other plot line because these characters are hilarious. Part 1 was great, but Part 2 was the same exact thing. To me it came off as lazy and it felt like they didn't even try. Of course, the one-liners are hilarious, but that doesn't make up for the rest of the film. So hopefully the next one will be better...