What can you say about The Hangover “franchise” that hasn’t already been said? Sure, it features an odd cast that for some reason clicks together very well, an absurd premise that for some reason works very well and many other elements that, on paper, should have probably made the first movie a flop — or at the very least relegated to DVD.

Well, as you know, that didn’t happen. In fact, the first one was a monster hit that spawned a sequel and made household names of its stars. And now, we’re in for the final chapter of the franchise: The Hangover Part 3.

The first full trailer has dropped today for the movie and it’s pretty much what you would expect. Although, that may have a lot to do with the fact that with this trailer, the marketing department is trying to give you more of the same to help you remember why you loved these movies in the first place. Expect some different trailers and such later on.

Meantime, check out this new one after the break. Look for The Hangover Part 3 to hit theaters on May 24th.

With the final season of The Office kicking off this week and the new season of Parks and Recreation also making its debut, it seems like a great time for some previews. Fortunately, our friends at NBC seem happy to accomodate us and have sent some on over.

Of course, as we always do, we are more than happy to share them with you. In fact, that’s kinda our job around here.

So, to get things started off right, we’ve got a packed preview for Season Five of Parks and Recreation as well as a couple clips from The Office, one that gives you an idea of what to expect from the final season and another that introduces some newcomers to Dunder Mifflin.

Check out all the vids after the break. Look for brand new episodes of The Office and Parks and Rec to arrive this Thursday.

The concept of a new Vacation movie is tricky. On one hand there is juice left in the original franchise, you could bring as much of the original gang back as possible and make a great flick out of it.

On the other hand, remaking the movie might allow it to be more relevant to today’s modern, family vacationing world, which has changed a lot since the original’s early ’80s release.

Well, it looks as if New Line has decided on a bit of compromise between the two concepts. The film will follow Rusty Griswold, Chevy Chase’s son in the series, as he takes his family on the titular trip.

And Variety is reporting that the new Rusty has just been pegged:

Ed Helms is getting ready to continue a Griswold family vacation tradition as the actor is in negotiations to star in New Line’s “Vacation.”… The new version of the vacation adventures of the quirky dad and his family will follow Rusty, who now has his own family misadventures on the road.

Helms is a great actor, and keeping the franchise rooted to the originals is a classy choice. Unless they fail to get Chase and Beverly D’Angelo back for at least a torch passing cameo.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for any breaking news, as we are watching the development of this one closely and with fingers tightly crossed.

The first Hangover film was fantastic, really nailing a raunchy, adult comedy in a stylish way that has rarely been seen since the 80s. The second film was basically an overseas beat for beat remake of the original. A photocopy of the first, which still meant it was funny, but some luster had worn off.

Despite that the sequel made a ton of monies at the Box Office, so you knew a third would be on its way. According to Life & Style we finally have a crazy location for the wolf-pack to get lost in:

An industry insider reveals to Life & Style the top-secret filming locations. “A lot of it will be shot in Los Angeles, but then they are going to do the crazy scenes in Las Vegas again and then one wild week in Tijuana,” the source tells Life & Style. Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are all set to reprise their roles.

Word has been percolating for quite some time that the third Hangover was going to have a bit of a different structure than the first too. This news actually leads a little credence to that as it seems the boys will have adventures all over Vegas, Southern California and even dipping down into Mexico.

The Flickcast will keep our ears out for any new updates on this big budget comedy sequel.

Jeff is a jobless 30-year-old slacker man-child who does indeed live in the basement of his mother’s house. He is an expert at marijuana smoke rings, daytime television and pickup basketball but whines and protests when asked to perform a simple household errand for his mother (a wonderful Susan Sarandon). Lost and paralyzed, he casts desperately about for clues on what to do with his life, as per a favorite movie, 2002’s Signs, M. Night Shamalayan’s ridiculously self-serious examination of the eerie and paranormal.

So far the title character sounds like a cliché of the zeitgeist, but as played by the shambolically charming Jason Segel, and in the witty, expertly paced hands of the Duplass brothers, this movie is joyful entertainment from start to finish. Jeff is earnest and open-hearted. When the universe sends a sign, he follows. Never mind that every step ends in folly and humiliation. It is enough for him that there is a path.

That path merges him directly into the way of his distant, scornful brother, Pat (Ed Helms, channeling a lower-runged, far angrier version of his uptight corporate drone in The Office). Pat is an underling who has to spend his days in a hideous paint company shirt and tie, lives in a low-end apartment complex with his sweet and pretty wife (Judy Greer) and is suffering an early midlife crisis manifested by the purchase of a Porsche he can’t even begin to pay off, but hey, at least he has a job.

The story of The Lorax has never felt right to me. Either the Once-ler is the most short-sighted whatsit in the world, next to the Lorax himself (or at least the forest creatures), or the entire tale is a buried parable on the importance of stable property rights. Given Seuss’s general lack of subtlety when making a political point, the latter probably isn’t the case. In any event, why does no one preserve the Truffula trees? If the Once-ler owns the forest, and his business is based on the Truffula trees, why on earth would he practice clear-cutting?

He, like pretty much every other private timber company that owns the forest they log, has an incentive to preserve the forest (unless he’s renting it from the creatures, but that doesn’t seem to be the case) – clearly the Once-ler needed to fire his business planner. Or, once the land had been deforested, should have sold it and the seed to another logging concern.

Heck, they’d probably seek him out, since Truffula trees are a hot commodity, and there’s a lot of Thneedians; we already know that one of the characters is a budding entrepreneur, it’d be a lot easier and a lot more profitable for him to replant the forest than find a way to sell air. Evidently the Thneedians don’t understand marginal utility, but that’s okay, what gets me is how Seuss (and the movie) stacks the odds in his favor.

Those who have had the stomach to sit through the post-departure of Steve Carell from The Office know that the show hasn’t had the same excitement and originality it had when he was attached. Since Helms and newcomer James Spader have taken the lead in the show, it’s become less about the boss and more about the employees of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

That’s probably why NBC is contemplating taking the show’s standout character, Dwight Shrute, and giving him his own spin-off, a la NBC’s move with Friends and Joey. We all remember how that ended. THR has the scoop.

Reports of NBC eyeing a potential spin-off centered around Rainn Wilson’s quirky Dwight Schrute character are indeed true, according to a well-placed source. The idea would be to further explore the Shrute family farm, with multiple generations of Schrutes involved. The comedy concept could get a test of sorts on an episode of The Office later this season.

The second Hangover movie was a success. The movie might have suffered from being to much like the original, but the original was pretty damn awesome, so there was still lots to like. So a third installment seemed likely, and now according to The Hollywood Reporter the final hurdles are being cleared as we speak.

Dealmaking on the studio’s third installment in the raunchy comedy franchise is wrapping up after dragging on for months due in part to the salary demands of its three stars. Sources close to the negotiations say Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are asking for $15 million each (against backend) to reprise their roles, and they now are likely to get it.

The next Hangover film is said to be a departure from the formula of the first two films. It is risky to stray to far from a proven formula, but knowing that the filmmakers actively want to make a film with these characters that we know and love with out an inexplicable third memory blacked out party is a great sign.

Warner Bros. is hoping to bring the story to Los Angeles, with filming beginning in the summer. Hangover 3 has a tentative release date of Memorial Day 2013.

It’s never a good sign when a film gets pushed back over 6 months. It’s even worse when a studio like Paramount pushes 3 of their upcoming 2012 films back. That seems to be the case, as the mountainous studio has pushed back 3 of its releases. One of these releases is the upcoming 3D epic Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton.

According to an interview with Deadline, a studio exec for Paramount says this is all part of the plan to push the film overseas, but when a film gets pushed from March 2 to January 11 of the following year, it’s never a good sign.

“This should really set up the international,” a studio exec explains to me. ”Jeremy Renner’s international profile should be in great shape after being in Mission: Impossible 4 now, then The Avengers in May, then The Bourne Legacy in August. As this past weekend shows, January is great play time internationally, and we haven’t done too bad domestically in January, either.”

Last year didn’t have many major hits, but one film that managed to sneak past critics and turned out to be one of the highest grossing films of the year was the animated film Despicable Me. Bringing in both kids and adults alike, the film was able to prove that Pixar isn’t the only studio to produce quality CG-animated films.

Now, from the same studio, and the man who brought us The Cat in the Hat, comes The Lorax. For those who aren’t aware of this lesser known Seussian tale, here’s a breakdown.

From the creators of Despicable Me and the imagination of Dr. Seuss comes the 3D-CG feature Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, an adaptation of the classic tale of a forest creature who shares the enduring power of hope. The animated adventure follows the journey of a 12-year-old as he searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.

The film has a pretty awesome cast, featuring Danny DeVito, Zac Eforn, Betty White, Taylor Swift, and Ed Helms. We’ve got a bit before the film hits theaters on March 2nd, but you can check out the trailer after the jump.

Yeah, so I missed the season premiere of The Office, too (again, Sister’s wedding last week, combined with a total ignorance of the show’s return—I’ve seen tons of ads for the new “comedy” with the two sisters from that one show and the other “comedy” with Zooey Daschenel, but nothing about The Office or Parks and Rec). Has NBC put the kibosh on advertising for their shows?

Still, I watched last week’s episode “The List” to catch up, and, writing out this recap, I can safely say that don’t remember much of it outside of there being a list made up by Robert California (I love that name) and everyone worrying about what it signifies. I can’t say it was very good, but it didn’t seem particularly bad either. More ho-hum.

Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• We finally get the first sounds of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull in a new teaser for Captain America: The First Avenger. Funny…he sounds a lot like Megatron.

• It looks like the lawsuit against Warner Bros for use of Mike Tyson’s tattoo on Ed Helms in The Hangover Part II may force them to CG the tattoo out of the DVD’s. This seems like a completely reasonable use of that $400 million the film made in the box office.

• Dark animated film 9 director Shane Acker is planning on a big-screen adaptation of Thomas The Tank Engine. Our hope is that Tim Burton also produces this film and Thomas is now a train…from hell!

• Ever want to know what Raiders of the Lost Ark would be like with Tom Selleck and Sean Young? Here you go, but we warn you: the mustache did not help him in the audition.

• Before we ever get the inevitable leaked pilot, we’ve got a whopping 7 second teaser from the failed NBC Wonder Woman series. Who knew you could sum up the entire reason why it failed in 7 seconds?

• In hoping to leave the kids table and join the big boys, Nintendo has teamed with Ubisoft to work on a new raunchy game for the WiiU, titled Killer Freaks from Outer Space. We’re totally sold.