Merry Christmas from “Harold and Kumar”
Back in July of last year, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg announced that they were developing a third Harold and Kumar film. It makes sense that New Line wanted a sequel after the release of “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” which grossed over $43 million worldwide after a production budget of around $12 million. In fact, the first film, “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” wasn’t even considered a success until developing a strong following on DVD.
There were rumors of a Neil Patrick Harris spin-off as well, but talks died down, Kal Penn joined President Obama’s administration as a liaison to Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities and “arts groups” so movie fans figured we’d just have to get by on the pair of stoner comedies. However, it now appears the project is still in the works, and actually much further along than most had believed as Warner Bros has announced that they will be releasing “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” in theaters on November 5th 2010. John Cho recently spoke about the upcoming third installment and according to the actor, the current plan is to shoot the film this summer.
“It looks like it’s happening,” he said. “The script has been turned in, though I haven’t read it. But from what I know, we catch up a little bit later in Harold and Kumar’s lives and it takes place over the holiday season. This could be a legit holiday movie, which is a shocker, but I think their intent is to honor the traditions of the holiday movie style, that genre.”
Cho said that the only possible hurdles standing in the way of a third “Harold and Kumar” installment are the lack of a director and possible scheduling issues with Kal Penn’s schedule.
“I don’t know if there’s an issue with Kal or not,” said Cho. “I know he’s at the White House now and I don’t know if he can take time off. I don’t even know if his job is, like, a term-length job — that it has a set number of months, and whether that’s completed or not. They tell me we’re moving forward, so we’ll see what happens.”
Great news for sure, but do you think it’s too late to script Neil Patrick back in, even if it’s just a cameo?