Mel Gibson; the Australian actor who often plays freedom fighting types like William Wallace in Braveheart and Benjamin Martin in The Patriot, or angry, vengeance-seeking, heroes like Riggs from Lethal Weapon, or Max, in Mad Max; is currently reeling from yet another high-profile public scandal, which he hopes to alleviate slightly by making a cameo appearance in the highly anticipated sequel to lasts year’s The Hangover.
Unlike the first film; which focussed on four friends having what must have been an amazing bachelor party in Las Vegas, before waking up and finding that they had lost the groom, and had no memory of the previous night; The Hangover 2 will not take place in Las Vegas, but will reunite the principal cast for another drunken night of mayhem, in Bangkok.
Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson popped up in an impressive cameo during the first film; playing himself, and amazed audiences by doing a short rendition of Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight; but will now see the cameo role passing over to Mel Gibson, who’s role will be very different from Tyson’s (and even how we’ve seen him before in movies such as Edge of Darkness); as he will be appearing not as himself, but as a larger-than-life Bangkok tattoo artist.
Mel’s part will be filmed in two weeks, on a Bangkok set that has been built on the Warner Bros. lot, before production then heads over to Thailand to complete the remainder of the filming, with the lads from the first film; Phil (Bradley Cooper, The A-Team), Stu (Ed Helms, The Office), Alan (Zach Galifianakis, Due Date), and Doug (Justin Bartha, National Treasure) will all be returning, as will the infamous Asian gangster Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong, Knocked Up).
Todd Phillips has also returned to direct the movie; which he has co-written with Scot Armstrong (who worked with him on Old School, Road Trip, and Starsky and Hutch); and while most details of the film are being kept secret, it has been confirmed that Heather Graham (the From Hell star who played Stu’s Vegas-stripper-wife, Jade) will not be reprising her role for the sequel; which began filming earlier this month, and is due for release on July 4th in the U.S., but will have an early opening in the U.K., on May 27th, 2011.
