Producer Greg Shapiro Teases ‘Harold & Kumar 4’ At Karlovy Vary: “Hopefully We’ll Be Shooting It Soon”

Harold & Kumar producer Greg Shapiro confirmed that the fourth instalment of the stoner buddy comedy franchise is still set to go ahead, with key writers and actors all lined up for the upcoming project. 

“We’re working on the screenplay right now for the next Harold and Kumar movie, but everybody’s back – the actors, the writers – the writers are directing,” said Shapiro, who was speaking at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Tuesday. “Hopefully, we’ll be shooting it soon. It just like any movie where it all has to come together in the right way.” 

Last year it was reported that Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald, the creators of Netflix’s hit Karate Kid sequel series Cobra Kai, were set to develop a new Harold & Kumar film for Lionsgate’s Mandate Pictures. Hurwtiz and Schlossberg are set to direct from a script written with Heald. After scripting the original 2004 film, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, they went on to make their directorial debut with Harold & Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay in 2008 followed by A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. 

While the first film was only a modest hit in theatres, it exploded on DVD and gained a cult following. Films to date have cumulatively grossed around $104M worldwide. 

Shapiro, whose credits also include The Hurt Locker and A House of Dynamite, the former of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture, sat down for a session at Karlovy Vary’s Industry Days strand where he participated in a wide-ranging conversation about producing with Nomadland producer Mollye Asher. 

Asher reflected on her experience of working with director Chloé Zhao, notably the director’s first film Songs My Brothers Taught Me. That indie project, which was one of Asher’s early jobs, saw its financing drop out just before the film was about to shoot.  

“It was early on in my career, and I didn’t really know so many places to go so we had to send everybody home,” she said. “People had sub-let their apartments. We paid people for their time and a little bit more because people had given up other jobs but then we got back to New York and [Chloe] was like, ‘How much do we have in the bank account?’ We had gotten a number of grants at that time. We did crowdfunding, and she was like, ‘Do you just want to try and make it for what we have? And so myself and my producing partner on that, Angela [C. Lee], we said yes. We were not going to give up on this.” 

Shapiro, meanwhile, reflected on an early experience in his career, when he produced comedy The Rules of Attraction. That film, directed by Roger Avary and based on Bret Easton Ellis’ 1987 novel of the same name, which was months into the shoot when 9/11 happened.  

“It was a college movie and there was a party in the movie called ‘The End of the World Party’ and that’s what we were shooting. We all got to set [before the first plane hit] because we were there really early in the morning and people panicked, rightfully so. I was panicked. Everyone wanted us to shut down but we couldn’t shut down because it was such a small independent film and Roger stood up, and I’ll never forget this, he stood up in front of the entire crew and said, ‘If anybody wants to leave right now, I will totally understand and you’ll be welcome back tomorrow or the next day. There’s no judgement but I need to be here right now, shooting this movie.’” 

Shapiro continued saying that everyone – with the exception of one person – stayed on set to continue making the movie because people wanted “to be around people.” 

“We felt like family at this point because we’d been shooting for months at this point and there was this tightness and it was the first example that I felt as a producer of everybody rowing in the same direction. There was this unity that Roger had created and it just happened to be put to the test on September 11.”