John Cho Says A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas Could Shoot In June

Is there any point to doing a Harold & Kumar movie without Kal Penn? We may find out, as John Cho is now saying that the proposed third film in the series, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas could end up shooting this summer for a fall release.

Cho is promoting FlashForward, and told Collider that while on hiatus from that show he'd be able to shoot the third Harold & Kumar film this summer.(Or, more properly, Collider led him a bit with the question about shooting the film while on hiatus, and he agreed.) The question is Kal Penn, who currently has a job in Washington, DC as part of the Obama administration. Will he able to do the film? Doesn't seem like they've got a movie without him. Which, erm, might not be a bad idea if this is really going to be a stoner Christmas movie.

There's a script for the film already, and Cho says "it looks like it's happening," but he hasn't read the script. His understanding is that it picks up a while after the second film, and that it could be a "legit holiday movie," with an intention to make a film very much in the spirit of other holiday-themed comedies. But Cho doesn't know what the plan is vis a vis rewrites, and says there's no director at this point.

Cho says Neil Patrick Harris "is supposed to be in it," and...yeah. Why would he do this? Then again, NPH is in the Smurfs movie, which is a couple points below Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay on the grand sliding scale of worthwhile films, so who knows? (Truth be told, I didn't really mind Escape from Guantanamo Bay, though I'm hardly scrabbling to add the DVD to my collection.)

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas was officially announced in May of 2009, and was then slated for a November 5, 2010 release. Can they hit that date if the film shoots in June? Why not?