Ken Jeong (Community) spent his time in The Hangover as a mean, naked gambler that hit so hard; he returned in The Hangover Part II, but [spoiler alert] spent the better part of the movie presumably dead.  In The Hangover Part III, Jeong’s role will be substantially more involved.  Plot details are being kept under wraps at the moment, but we do know that the story takes place in Tijuana and may include breaking Alan (Zach Galifianakis) out of a mental institution.  Jeong’s schedule is being massaged to avoid conflicts with Community, which shoots this August, while The Hangover Part III is set to begin in September.  THR also reports that the threequel will feature the return of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and director Todd Phillips.

We all knew that Men in Black 3 would wind up overtaking The Avengers after three weeks of record-breaking dominance. What we didn’t know was that that would wind up as MIB3’s sole accomplishment this weekend. With a huge release in 4,248 locations, and on one of the biggest movie-going weekends of the year, MIB3 is not exactly setting the box office on fire with its three-day estimate of $55 million.

Looks like holiday cheer was not enough to pull the box office out of its recent slump.  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows came out on top with $40 million from 3,703 locations while Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked claimed second with $23.5 million from 3,723.  Needless to say, neither sequel was able to meet the expectations their predecessors set on Christmas weekend back in 2009.  Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, took in $13 million from just 425 locations – making Tom Cruise the big winner of this weekend’s box office derby.  It’s like a little Christmas miracle.

The Hangover Part II was inevitable in our current modern cinema. No film can gross over $250 Million domestic and not have a sequel, and the first Hangover was not only hugely profitable, but a cultural phenomenon that made movies stars out of Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper. But where sequels for genre films tend to advance their characters and tell a different story in a sequel, comedies both have to but can’t totally repeat themselves. That was director Todd Phillips’s biggest challenge with this movie, and the main angle was taking the characters to Bangkok – which makes Vegas look relatively benign – for much of the same results. Our review of the Blu-ray of The Hangover Part II follows after the jump.

Jack and Jill gained some ground on Saturday, though not enough to slay the Immortals.  The 3D action/fantasy film finished first with an estimated $32 million from 3,112 locations. Considering that the film’s distributor was expecting a top opening of $26 million that has to be seen as a win.  And even if the film’s total does look somewhat anemic compared to past 3D hits, with the year we’ve had I’d prefer to focus on the positive.

As expected, neither of this week’s new comedies came close to catching Transformers 3 on its second weekend.  While Horrible Bosses became the latest R-rated comedy to top expectations this summer, Zookeeper became the latest potential tentpole to fall flat.  Meanwhile, both films combined barely topped this weekend’s estimate for Dark of the Moon, which became the US’s highest-grossing release of 2011 as of Sunday.

After months of buildup, Super 8 took top honors this weekend with an estimated $37 million from 3,379 locations.  That figure is significantly higher than the film had been tracking just five days ago.  Is it higher than the studio was hoping for five months ago?  Not exactly.

As the only new release of June’s first frame, X-Men: First Class easily claimed the top spot with an estimated $56 million from 3,641 locations.  While that is nowhere near what the last three X-films earned in their debuts, let’s face it, First Class was never playing in their league.

The Hangover Part II co-writer Craig Mazin has been hired to write the script for The Hangover Part III.  Warner Bros. is wasting no time in moving forward on a sequel to the box-office record-breaker and I’m honestly a little surprised that they hadn’t already started moving on a new film when the Hangover 2 was tracking through the roof.  Mazin, whose previous credits include Scary Movie 3 and 4, co-wrote The Hangover Part II with director Todd Phillips and screenwriter Scot Armstrong (Semi-Pro), although “wrote” may not be the best way to describe it.  I’m not sure if copy-pasting the script from the first film and making minor changes counts as “writing”.

When Steve spoke with Phillips during the press junket for Hangover Part II, Phillips said that Part III would be the finale to the series but would be a new template and a new idea.  Hit the jump for his full quote.  [The Tracking Board via The Wrap]

We all know that this hasn’t been the best year for movies at the domestic box office.  Only a handful of weekends have come out ahead of 2010 in terms of profit.  Luckily, this Memorial Day Weekend was one of them.  Traditionally one of the most profitable of Hollywood’s entire year, this year’s holiday more than measured up.  First, The Hangover Part II crushed the All-Time opening for a comedy.  Then estimates put the combined profits of the domestic box office at nearly 50% above last year’s four-day holiday frame and 10% above 2007’s profits (the year which held the all-time record).  Here’s how the top ten looks, including revised estimates for the three-day weekend:

Here are the estimates for the top ten films this Memorial Day Weekend.  Note that the weekend figure includes only the three days of a traditional box office weekend, even though both of the week’s major new releases (The Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2) debuted last Thursday.  We’ll have a full analysis of the four/five day holiday tomorrow, but today I would just like to give a quick shout out to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris which has made it into the top ten on the strength of just 58 venues. It is the first time I’ve personally seen an Allen film in the weekend top ten since… ever

Derivative? Check. Well reviewed?  Not really.  Kicking crazy ass at the domestic box office?  Oh, hell yes.  I am, of course, talking about Warner Brothers’ The Hangover Part II, the film that has already broken the one day record for a live-action comedy with its stunning $31.7 million Thursday debut.  That was on top of its $10.4 million midnight take – easily the highest of 2011.  Day two for the Wolf Pack brought in an additional $30 million from 3,615 locations, giving the film a current estimate of $61.6 million in total.  If projections hold, The Hangover II could end up with a five day total of over $135 million and a spot in the top five of all-time (four-day) Memorial Day Weekend debuts.  On the strength of this sequel, Memorial Day 2011 is going to crush the total box office take of 2010 and could even end up topping the 2007 holiday – the most profitable on record. Thursday also saw the debut of Kung Fu Panda 2, which earned an estimated $18.98 million between Thursday and Friday and is now projected to earn $55 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend.  That would be a bit below the $60.2 million the original KFP took in over its first three days back in June of 2008, but projections are not always accurate.  We’ll have updates and analysis as the holiday weekend progresses.

I liked the first teaser trailer for The Muppets because it took on the broad rom-com before making the reveal of The Muppets.  I’m a little less impressed with this new teaser trailer which is specifically parodying the teaser trailer for The Hangover Part II.  Maybe if this is part of a series where they make fun of the advertising for every summer movie, I can see these ads working.  If this just stands alone, then it’s a little too corny (although I love Danny Trejo’s line at the end).

Hit the jump to check out the new teaser trailer for “The Fuzzy Pack“.  The Muppets stars Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and Chris Cooper.  The film opens November 23rd.

The original Hangover hit like a bolt from the blue.  Good R-rated comedies are few and far between (although this summer we’ll be getting a bunch of R-rated comedies, but there’s no telling how many will actually be good) and the 2009 comedy brought enough surprises into its fast-paced narrative that the concept of blending a detective story with raunchy laughs worked like a charm.  It’s ironic that The Hangover Part II bases so many of its jokes on shock value and yet clings so dearly to the exact same formula of the original, right down to the plot beats and character actions.  More of the same isn’t necessarily a bad thing and the sequel still manages to deliver laughs, but the stale stench of been-there, done-that pervades the entire film despite the vibrant background of Bangkok.

With director Todd Phillips The Hangover Part II opening this weekend, I recently got to participate in a press conference with Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong and Phillips in Los Angeles.  Shortly after the press conference ended, I got to speak with Galifianakis in a one on one setting.

While our conversation was only ten minutes, we talked about everything from what are his favorite movies to working with babies and smoking monkeys.   In addition, we talked about his feelings on making a sequel to the biggest R rated comedy of all time, his thoughts on doing Hangover 3, what’s up with Between Two Ferns, Bored to Death, The Muppets, Southern Rivals, and Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to our conversation.