Moments ago, I wrote about the trailer for Dylan Meyer’s upcoming stoner comedy The Wrong Girls, and now we’re getting word that a fourth film in the Harold & Kumar series is in the works! Are stoner comedies back, y’all? Will I be entertained rather than subjected to unfunny, nostalgia-driven slop like Happy Gilmore 2? To each their own and all that, but zany comedies are my jam, and it’s been too long since we shared a meal with Harold and Kumar.
According to reports, Harold & Kumar 4 is happening, with key players from the series returning for another tray stacked with dumb laughs, ridiculous characters, and outlandish antics. For the uninitiated, the Harold & Kumar movies star John Cho (Searching, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Murderbot) and Kal Penn (American Horror Story, Clarice, The Santa Clauses) as two hapless stoners whose seemingly innocent trip to White Castle turns into an unpredictable evening of pure chaos as everything that can go wrong does. Released in 2004, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle had two sequels: 2008’s Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and 2011’s A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas. All three movies are acquired tastes, but I eat them up with a fork and knife. No napkin.
Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Harold & Kumar producer Greg Shapiro said, “I made a series of movies called ‘Harold & Kumar.’ The first one was ‘Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,’ and we made three, but we’re actually doing the fourth one pretty soon.”
When asked for further comment, Shapiro said, “We’re working on the screenplay right now for the next ‘Harold & Kumar’ movie, but everybody’s back, the actors, the writers … the writers are directing, and hopefully we should be shooting it soon, you know, they’re just … it’s like any movie, it all has to come together in the right way.”
Last year, Variety reported that the original Harold & Kumar writers, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, were set to direct a new installment in the series and would write the screenplay with Josh Heald.
I’m down to get back behind the wheel with Harold and Kumar. Despite the sequels varying in quality, a reunion between Cho and Penn could yield hilarious results. Obviously, it’ll be a minute before Harold & Kumar 4 is ready to roll into production, but I’m looking forward to it. How about you? Let us know in the comments section below.