At the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Tuesday, Greg Shapiro confirmed that John Cho & Kal Penn would be returning for a fourth edition of the iconic stoner series Harold & Kumar. “We’re working on the screenplay right now for the next Harold & Kumar movie,” the producer said. “But everybody’s back, the actors, the writers - the writers are directing, and hopefully we should be shooting it soon…”
In June 2025, The Hollywood Reporter broke the story that writers of the previous Harold & Kumar films, Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz, were set to write and direct the newest installment and reunite with Shapiro. Newcomer to the series, Josh Heald, has been tapped to write the script alongside his Cobra Kai buddies in Schlossberg and Hurwitz.
”There were different directors on each movie, and they are comedies, so you want to reach as broad an audience as possible,” Shapiro continued in his panel. “So there are a couple of people in some of those three movies that the directors did not want. I can’t tell you who they are, but one of them ended up being just a remarkable surprise. And then there was another one, an underground comedy star that the director wanted that the studio refused to put in, and we somehow won that battle on that person. And it’s just one of the funniest moments in the movie.”
The first film, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, was a modest box office hit making just under $25M on a $9M budget, but its excellent ancillary markets scored it a sequel as Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay nearly doubled the box office return. The third film, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, continued its incremental box office increase, but with its larger budget, failed to procure a profit. With the movies seeing a second life on streaming, it remains to be seen whether this can be a hit.