“How ‘The Hangover’ Got Made”
Fascinating backstory on the genesis of the screenplay for The Hangover courtesy of Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood. The movie had a big opening weekend ($45M), representing the 3rd highest launch of an R-rated movie. Where did The Hangover get its start?
It all started with Chris Bender who heard the story of how his Hollywood friend went mysteriously missing from his bachelor party in Las Vegas. The pal (photo, right) was film producer Tripp Vinson (The Guardian, The Number 23, and now the Red Dawn remake) who in 2002 was engaged to marry Endeavor motion picture lit agent Adriana Alberghetti. Like always happens, the real facts don’t quite match up with the movie. There was no wedding scheduled that same weekend. Instead, the bachelor party was held months earlier. It consisted of 30 guys booked into the Hard Rock Hotel for a wild night of partying at a succession of Vegas restaurants, clubs and strip joints.
I remember being a drunken fool, as you’re supposed to do at your bachelor party, and having a really good time with all my friends,” Vinson told me. “But then I remember being a mess. And when people are fucked up, crazy shit happens.” That’s when Tripp went missing from his bash. Even now, all Vinson knows is, “I got separated from my friends, and I blacked out. And when I was revived, I was in a strip club being threatened with a very, very large bill I was supposed to pay. It was not a fun experience at the time, but it made for a funny story.”
From there, you have a story almost as interesting as the plot for The Hangover involving several producers, two sets of writers, New Line and Warner Bros., and two competing bachelor party projects including this very similar one:
Then again, back in 2003, the same Greg Silverman bought a pitch from Mark Peretz for The Afterparty, in which a young man enjoys his Las Vegas bachelor party so much he can’t remember anything about it. Then, as he and his fiancee make last-minute preparations for their big day, the strange characters he befriended during his lost weekend — including a chicken and a tiger — begin to make surprise appearances. Silverman was to oversee the project. Jamie Kennedy was attached.
Read the article, it’s well worth it.
And h/t to GITS reader Ryan Covert for catching this story.
