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When we first interviewed Todd Phillips, we had no idea The Hangover would become the biggest R-rated comedy of all time, with $300+ million. With the DVD and Blu Ray coming out, we can get his perspective on the wild summer his Las Vegas comedy had. Phillips gave another roundtable interview in Las Vegas, and you didn’t have to twist our arm to be there.
Q: Why do you think there was such widespread acclaim for this movie?
Todd Phillips: I think it was good timing on the movie. I do. I think when you look at the movies that work and you look at the movies that don’t work. You can say what you want about Transformers 2, whether you liked it or not, it was true to what they were selling. So oftentimes the marketing is misleading people. I think when you mislead people, you end up with disappointed people who then tell their friends they’re disappointed. Transformers delivered exactly what they said it was, whether you liked it or not. The Hangover did the same thing and I think when you deliver on your marketing materials, really say, “This is what the movie is.” I think people are so used to being tricked that it lives up to expectations to some extent. That, and obviously I think the movie’s very funny and it definitely is one of those movies you want to see with a crowd the first time because comedies tend to feed off of energy just like a lot of big movies, Star Trek or those kind of movies. In a theatrical experience, I think it sort of feeds on it.
Q: Is it surreal that your movie has set all these records?
Todd Phillips: It is. It is surreal. Any director I think would be lying if they didn’t tell you they want as many people as possible to see their movie. Whether it’s about money or what, you make a movie, it’s not a hobby. It’s far too difficult for it to be a hobby. You make a movie so people will see it, but I would’ve never thought it would’ve been the highest R-rated comedy of all time or whatever.
Q: Did you get some sh*t from Vince Vaughn, who had the last one?
Todd Phillips: [Laughs] In fact, Vince sent me a bottle of champagne and so did David Dobkin, the director who’s a friend of mine, the night that we passed Wedding Crashers. We’re friends, we all work in the same thing so Vince was really actually happy for me. Genuinely happy. Those were good guys. Somebody else will do it in a year or two and I’ll send them champagne, maybe. Maybe. I’m not really that nice. I won’t. [Laughs]
Q: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis were in the spotlight, but where did Justin Bartha fit into casting?
Todd Phillips: Just a guy you want to rescue. I think it’s super important that the Doug character be someone that you want to rescue, that you do root for. If it was Bradley’s character who was stuck on the roof, these guys would probably go, “You know what? He’ll figure it out. He’ll be fine.” Justin, his character seemed like somebody you want to protect and someone you want to help. I think that was sort of the key, once we figured out who those three were, all right, now who’s the guy? Saving Private Ryan, right? You want to get him back. Matt Damon’s like the best. They wanted to save him.
Q: He better have some hot grandchildren then.
Todd Phillips: Right, exactly. I remember, those hot girls in the sweater. You remember how weird that was? Saving Private Ryan had like the hottest girls at the funeral. I remember it distinctly, he had these beautiful grandchildren. It’s the only thing I remember.
Q: What are your favorite bonus features?
Todd Phillips: You know, I haven’t actually seen the packaging done. Bonus features, I think my favorite personally is this Madness of Ken Jeong. Ken is just the craziest guy on the planet. We let, as I do with a lot of guys, with Ken we would just let him do a free one, I’d call it, let him just go off. On the DVD, we’d just put like these eight minute takes, eight or nine, the mag would run out of film but we would just run it, so I think, I know the Madness of Ken Jeong is just sort of an uncut sort of two takes of him uncut just trying stuff. I think they cut some things out for legal reasons, so if you see an edit, don’t worry. It was purely legal because he said things that you can’t say. Other than that, it was pretty much free form Ken Jeong stream of consciousness which is some of the weirdest stuff. It’s so weird because he does that horrible accent and he says the meanest things. Ken is so sweet and then afterwards, I’d go, “All right, we rolled out.” And he would go, “Was that okay? Is everything okay?” The whole crew would be looking down. He offended everybody and again, some of it was cut out but I think there’s a lot of really funny stuff in there.
Q: I can never tell what’s extended in the unrated cuts. Can you walk us through a few extra minutes?
Todd Phillips: You know, it’s funny when they call things unrated. The truth is how much more unrated could it be? It’s extended. It’s seven minutes and it’s actually scenes quite honestly that don’t make the cut for whatever reasons. There’s a scene with Jeffrey Tambor. There’s a scene with [Doug] and Sasha. It’s not necessarily unrated as you know. It’s stuff that either slows the rhythm down or maybe it’s a story point that we don’t need to get to, so it’s always tricky. I always have a hard time with the wording of these things because they’re not Director’s Cuts because my director’s cut is the movie. They’re extended cuts. They call it unrated. I think they get away with it on this because there’s 100 new photos which are unrated so that’s part of it I guess. We had a good time shooting those photos. That was fun.
Q: So why put the 7 minutes back in at all?
Todd Phillips: Well, again, when you buy this, there are two discs in here. The regular movie and then the extra so it’s hard, as everybody knows, the DVD business is always changing. I think people want, they went to the movie already, they want more so whether it’s commentary or Ken Jeong or seven minutes that were cut out for whatever reason, I watch unrated or extended cuts all the time. When I watch extended cuts, I was just looking at Funny People and they have some unrated, but again it’s not unrated, it’s just extended. I just like to see, as a director personally, I like to see rhythm and why they cut things out so I think maybe regular people are interested in that, regular consumers but they just try to give you more. It’s sitting around the editing room, why not put it on.
Q: I’d have to watch side by side because I can’t remember.
Todd Phillips: Of course, that’s true. I really liked the Watchmen DVD. That was a great DVD.
