CHARLIE DAY, JASON SUDEIKIS BRING COMIC CHAOS TO “HORRIBLE BOSSES 2”

As much as they function best as a team, or what Jason Bateman calls “this three-headed monster, a sort of collective idiot,” New Line Cinema's “Horrible Bosses 2” lets Nick, Dale and Kurt also shine as distinctly individual personalities.

Says producer Jay Stern, “That’s really the strength and the secret of this kind of ensemble. There are people watching around the world who might not identify with all of them but will see a bit of themselves in Dale, or maybe Nick, or Kurt, so audiences have multiple opportunities to get drawn into it.”

For example, the needle of Charlie Day’s character, Dale, only points in one direction or the other: total fear and denial, or total gung-ho commitment. Above all, Dale’s first impulse is to avoid anything that will get him in trouble with his wife, a tendency he displayed in the first round when she was just his fiancée and is now amplified because the stakes are so much higher on the home front.

“They have triplets,” offers Day. “Though it’s not in the script, I’m assuming they got pregnant on their first attempt and then, surprise, it’s triplets! Because that’s what would happen to Dale. In one way, his dreams have come true, he got married to the woman he loves. But he’s in a little over his head with that already, and then they took this huge risk to start their own company, so Dale’s stress level is off the charts.”

Also off the charts is the lengths to which he is prepared to go to make things right.
“Dale is all over the place, flipping out one moment and being ominously quiet the next,” says director Sean Anders. “He’s the most neurotic and easily frightened of the three, and so the least predictable, and Charlie gives him the most amazing, infectious energy; he’s pitch perfect. Dale will jump head-first into some crazy idea like it’s brilliant, and then, the next moment, be screaming about how stupid it is and how it’s going to ruin their lives.”

Jason Sudeikis' Kurt, meanwhile, not one to worry like Nick, or panic like Dale, continues to sail along with full confidence that everything will work out and it’s all good, despite all evidence to the contrary, because he’s just that cool. If something goes wrong, they’ll just figure out a way around it, right?

Sudeikis’ take on Kurt is “happy-go-lucky, almost like a puppy dog. He likes to have fun, and he’s willing to go for it. He’s a bit of an adrenalin junkie, too, so long as there are no heights involved; if he can stay in the same relative longitude and latitude, he’s willing to try just about anything. I think Kurt, like his cohorts, is a product of the ‘Yes we can’ generation, and feels that anything he sets his mind to, he can accomplish.”

That attitude, combined with their checkered past, is what Sudeikis believes leads Kurt and his friends into further trouble. “The criminal activity they engaged in the first time really didn’t change their world very much,” he notes. “They got away with it. And that made them think maybe they could do things they really shouldn’t be doing, like being their own bosses.”

“Horrible Bosses 2” is the follow-up to the 2011 hit comedy “Horrible Bosses” and reunites Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis as everyone’s favorite working stiffs: Nick, Dale and Kurt.
Fed up with answering to higher-ups, Nick (Bateman), Dale (Day) and Kurt (Sudeikis) decide to become their own bosses by launching their own business. But a slick investor soon pulls the rug out from under them. Outplayed and desperate, and with no legal recourse, the three would-be entrepreneurs hatch a misguided plan to kidnap the investor’s adult son and ransom him to regain control of their company.

Jennifer Aniston and Jamie Foxx also reprise their “Horrible Bosses” starring roles, while Chris Pine and Christoph Waltz star as new adversaries standing between the guys and their dreams of success.

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 26, “Horrible Bosses 2” is a New Line Cinema Presentation distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Chris Pine exposes his funny side in "Horrible Bosses 2"

Chris Pine plays Rex Hanson , a joyful narcissist and a handsome villain to the "Horrible Bosses 2".
Action and dramatic actor Chris Pine (“Star Trek: Into Darkness”) exposes his funny side who has to contend with the giant shadow cast by his multimillionaire father, Bert (Christoph Waltz), in New Line Cinema’s hilarious comedy “Horrible Bosses 2.”

Pine cites some of the possible reasons for Rex’s volatile mental state. “Rex wants power and he gets continually emasculated by his distant, evil father, who is never satisfied with anything he does and seems not to care much for his privileged brat of a son. Poor Rex. He makes me laugh. He’s smart but he’s not all that self-aware, and he gets stranger and stranger as the story progresses.”

“We wanted a unique villain with a lot of contradictions and a great sense of humor, and he also had to be good-looking, dapper and cool because we liked the idea that our guys kind of have man-crushes on him a little bit,” says director Sean Anders. “You also get the feeling that on some level Rex really likes these guys and has a good time with them. Of course, he has to screw them over because that’s who he is, but at the same time I think he considers them his friends, and Chris got that crazy balance beautifully.”

Pine, who had been looking to do a comedy and responded in a big way to the “Horrible Bosses 2” script, took a purposefully relaxed approach as the fourth to an already precision-calibrated threesome. “They all take it seriously but they also know how to play. My prescription was to stay loose, hang with the guys and follow the music of the scene,” he says, which gave them a different energy to play against.

Those inclined to judge Rex too harshly should just look at what he comes from: Bert Hanson, a man who, by his own satisfied admission, makes new enemies every day. “What I like about Bert,” Anders offers, “is that this guy who comes in and totally destroys their lives probably only thought about it for 11 seconds because, to him, it’s just business.”

Having cast Christoph Waltz as the quintessential villain, the director admits, “It was a bit daunting, bringing him into some of these silly scenarios, because it’s impossible not to be mindful of those amazing, Oscar-winning dramatic roles he’s most famous for. But that’s precisely why he was right for Bert. His job here was to be the heavy. Had it been someone else who didn’t have Christoph’s presence, Bert wouldn’t have been as threatening.”

Waltz didn’t need to play funny because the humor of his scenes sparked from playing it straight. After all, it’s Bert’s casual cruelty that drives Nick, Dale and Kurt to retaliation, not to mention the depths of depravity to which his heartlessness goads his own son.
“My part is fairly straightforward and serious, but it gives them the opportunity to spring into action, like the sprocket in a mechanism,” says Waltz. “Comedy is all about timing, tempo and rhythm. In this case, my character is a vehicle for these fabulously funny people, and that’s what makes the machinery work. These guys have a great energy that is constantly running. It’s a fascinating process to watch.”

“Horrible Bosses 2” is the follow-up to the 2011 hit comedy “Horrible Bosses” and reunites Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis as everyone’s favorite working stiffs: Nick, Dale and Kurt.

Fed up with answering to higher-ups, Nick (Bateman), Dale (Day) and Kurt (Sudeikis) decide to become their own bosses by launching their own business. But a slick investor soon pulls the rug out from under them. Outplayed and desperate, and with no legal recourse, the three would-be entrepreneurs hatch a misguided plan to kidnap the investor’s adult son and ransom him to regain control of their company.

Jennifer Aniston and Oscar winner Jamie Foxx also reprise their “Horrible Bosses” starring roles, while Chris Pine and Oscar winner Christoph Waltz star as new adversaries standing between the guys and their dreams of success.

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 26, “Horrible Bosses 2” is a New Line Cinema Presentation distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

WB Remains The Only Studio In History To Surpass $1 Billion Domestically For 14 Consecutive Years

WARNER BROS. PICTURES CROSSES BILLION-DOLLAR MARK AT U.S. BOX OFFICE

 Warner Bros. Pictures became the only film studio in history to earn more than $1 billion at the domestic box office for 14 years in a row. In fact, the division has crossed the billion-dollar mark for 15 of the past 16 years. The announcement was made recently by Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. Pictures’ President of Domestic Distribution.

The studio passed the billion-dollar threshold thanks to a huge first quarter, featuring the box office success of New Line Cinema’s and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures’ “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” the second in Peter Jackson’s Trilogy, which opened in late 2013 but which enjoyed substantial returns in the first quarter of this year.

2014 continued to build with Warner Bros. Pictures’, Village Roadshow Pictures’ and LEGO System A/S’s blockbuster animated feature “The LEGO Movie”—which was the #1 movie for the first half of 2014—and “300: Rise of an Empire,” the heavy-hitting follow up to Zack Snyder’s groundbreaking “300,” from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. Summer started with a bang thanks to the monster hit “Godzilla,” from Warner Bros. and Legendary, IMAX’s largest opening this year, followed by Doug Liman’s action thriller from Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow, “Edge of Tomorrow,” starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, and one-of-a-kind comedy from Melissa McCarthy as New Line’s “Tammy.”

In making the announcement, Fellman said, “This is a proud day for our studio. To cross such an extraordinary milestone once again is a direct reflection of the high standards and incredible efforts of the dedicated and creative individuals at work here, both on and off the screen. We still have an exciting roster of films yet to open this calendar year and, together with the talented teams bringing them to the theater, we look forward to continued success.”

Still to come in 2014 from Warner Bros. Pictures are: New Line’s and MGM’s “If I Stay”; Alcon Entertainment’s “Dolphin Tale 2”; the dramatic comedy ensemble of “This Is Where I Leave You,” starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey and Jane Fonda; “Annabelle,” another chapter in New Line’s highly successful “The Conjuring”; David Dobkin’s “The Judge,” starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall in tour-de-force performances, from Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow; New Line’s sequel to the hit comedy “Horrible Bosses,” “Horrible Bosses 2,” reuniting the stars from the original, including Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day; “Inherent Vice,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “surf noir” adaptation of author Thomas Pynchon’s cult favorite novel; and from New Line and MGM, the much-anticipated finale to Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” Trilogy, “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.”