The Hangover 2 may not have been the best comedy last year. Actually, it probably didn’t number among the 30 best comedies of 2011. But it did make a lot of people laugh, and stormed the box office, which in turn made Warner Bros. a lot of money. And though we’ve known this was on the way for a while now (mostly because director Todd Phillips said as much when he was out promoting the second film, the details are finally coming together for a shooting schedule and planned release.

And from the sounds of the Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter, three other people are going to become both very happy and financially successful once they lock their deals in. Yes, stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis are currently deep in negotiations to return and since they’re the lynchpins of the franchise, they’re looking to score around $15 million each for their services. Most of the money, as on the second film, will hit their bank accounts once the movie goes into profit, but given that the first Hangover made $467 million worldwide and the second $581 million, there’s little danger of that not happening.

We’re sure the studio will be happy to cough up the cash if it means a solid commitment to another entry. The current schedule is for the new outing to start shooting this summer ready for a late May 2013 release.

And what of the plot? Writer Craig Mazin is hard at work thrashing that out now, and he’s hopefully not just cutting and pasting the gags from the first two scripts into a new location. Phillips is on record as saying that he wants to change things up and the actors have also been putting that line across. We’ll wait and see…