While others may have looked at The Hangover 2 and saw a terribly derivative comedy, I looked at it mainly as the next step in the evolution of star Ed Helms. He made his breakout in the first of those Todd Phillips comedies, and then took off on his own in a fantastic performance in Cedar Rapids
. The Hangover 2 showed, at least to me, that Helms was the only one of the cast to bring his "A" game to the table and had surpassed his colleagues. He was by far the best aspect of it, and he's been repaid for his newfound success with a wealth of new opportunities. The next of those will see him taking on not only a starring role but as producer in a remake of the 2010 French film, Le Mac.Johnny Rosenthal, currently hard at work on one of the parallel scripts for Bad Santa 2, sold the pitch to MRC and Ben Stiller's production house, Red Hour Films, and will write this as well. Pascal Bordeau directed the original Le Mac, telling the story of a mild mannered banker forced to pose as a notorious gangster and pimp.
This one's still a ways off, which will give Helms plenty of time for the myriad of projects currently on his slate. He'll be seen next in the Duplass Brothers' comedy, Jeff Who Lives At Home. He'll also be back for the next season of The Office
, and has the Warner Brothers comedy True North which he'll be exec-producing and starring. [Variety]
