This could be the next Hangover, if executed correctly, and if all the jokes aren't in this trailer. Hot Tub will be in theaters next March.

We talked to Cusack yesterday as part of 2012 interviews:

With comic book films being so huge right now in Hollywood and big-name actors like Robert Downey Jr. starring in films such as Iron Man, would you ever consider doing a comic book adaptation or a superhero film?

I don't know, but yeah, for sure. I think the adult comics are some of the best film ideas out there.

Are there any comics in particular out there that you'd like to make?

Not one that I particularly know that I would like to do, but whenever I've come across one, I've really liked them.

Are there any [comic book movies] you've seen floating around in Hollywood that you'd like to see made?

Yeah, I can, there was one or two that I heard of that sounded really cool. One of them was about, I think... it's a vampire and a killer, and they're on the road, and it's this really strange story. I thought that sounded pretty cool. Also some of the obscure ones, I don't know if there are any more superheroes left.

That sounds a little bit like Preacher?

I think it might have been Preacher.

You should get involved with that!

I'm trying to. I heard about that one, I like that.

Who would you want to play?

I'd say either the vampire or the priest. One of those two guys.

So just the two best characters in the comic?

Why not?

So I'm not 100% sure if Preacher is the script that Cusack saw, but the name definitely struck a chord with Cusack. I can't even imagine Cusack as an murderous Cassidy, but he could make a pretty bad ass Jesse or even Arseface's daddy. John August's screenplay may not even be finished yet, and it's possible Cusack was merely talking about it as an idea he'd heard floating around Hollywood.

Last we heard about the adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's comic series, Sam Mendes was possibly going to direct and the script was half finished in May. But at least Mendes said he was trying to translate it just right so there might be a second or a third.

Even though John Cusack tried to be pretty mum on the details, the actor (who's also a producer) filled us in exclusively about the movie's status, and just how R-rated this film will be.

Let's talk Hot Tub Time Machine. Where's the film at right now?

I won't give anything away, but we are cutting the film right now. But it's about four guys who go back to the 1980s.

From what we saw in the trailer it seems like a pure group comedy. Who is your character in that group? What is your role?

I play sort of a guy who is a little bit of a control freak. He doesn't like to look back, and he gets forced to go back.

Since you are dealing with time travel is this going to be a Peggy Sue Got Married scenario with the actors from the future stuck in their child bodies, or will you have younger versions of yourself playing 80s you?

I'm not gonna tell you.

You are killing me.

I'm not killing you I'm trying to tantalize you.

Well the trailer looks like a return to the heavy drug usage, heavy on the swears, super fun type comedy? Are you guys doing a lot of drugs?

That's true [about the comedy]. There's not a lot of it, but there's some, you know it's the 80s, it's got drugs and sex and all the things that you know...

Why should we be excited for this movie?

I think Craig Robinson, Clark Duke and Rob Corddry are hilarious. It's pretty fun if you like those old movies. There are some characters that make fun of those old movie characters like the stock bad guys on the ski patrol and the things like that.

What about the stock good guys? Anyone skewer your past characters a little bit?

We'll we have those too [for the good guys]. I think somewhere in there it's doing that. Crispin Glover is in it and he was in Back To The Future and is an 80s icon. He's in it. Chevy Chase is in it.

Besides the cast, why did you want to get involved with this project?

Because MGM was making it, and they only had about half of a script and they wanted to start making it before the summer. So they said, you have to just go shoot it right now, and you can produce it, but you'll have to rewrite the script and write it, but you'll have to start in seven weeks. So it was a very insane project and time frame, but we decided to do it anyways. It was a mad dash. Because you know what the fuck? It's just this insane juggernaut.

With a title like that, it kind of has to go to that extreme.

Even the filming was that way, we only had about 60 pages of the script. We just had to write it as we went. A lot of it is improv.

According to the wire 2012 is getting ready to D-box your brains out, because this end of the world joy ride is going to include some action seats.

Audience members viewing 2012 in theaters equipped with the D-BOX motion technology will not
only see the movie, but experience it in a unique way as their surroundings respond and react to the events on screen....D-BOX's motion designers spend hundreds of hours creating realistic motion effects (referred to as "MFX") frame by frame in perfect sync with the onscreen action for each individual movie, providing an experience unlike any other on the market. Each D-BOX MFX seat comes equipped with individual intensity settings that can be adjusted to heighten or decrease the motion experience. While moviegoers feel motion effects during many of the action sequences, the seats will remain still during the more dialogue-driven scenes.

Which means, more action for your action, stuffed with action. If this is the wave of the future, count me out. The last thing I need to do is feel the car slamming into my passenger door while John Cusack screams "we're all gonna die!" Unless there's a nice "Cusack caressing the side of my face" scene — if the D-box can make that happen believably, then they can have all my money. Otherwise, you'd better make sure your popcorn bucket can double as a barf bag.

What was the movie John Cusack was watching? Why, it's this...

Also here's some more information 2012 collected about the inevitable end of the world and the roots of the problem...

B Roll: The Cardboard Crazies Were Right:

After a two-minute clip from 2012 appeared on almost every broadcast and cable network in the United States last night, this five-minute demolition derby clip went online at Fancast and at Comcast On Demand. Is it terribly wrong that as soon as I start thinking of 2012 as a demented comedy, I get vastly more excited for it? [Fancast]

The flick follows a group of cussing and apparently snow-happy friends (Craig's got a little something on his nose) who take a dip in a ski lodge tub, and wake up in 1987. I think my past question about whether or not they will remain in their present bodies (in the past) a la Peggy Sue Got Married has been answered. They are doomed to be middle aged men forever.

Part of us feels like this whole movie pitch was originally just a giant joke to fool us bloggers, and to be honest we're kind of sad it wasn't, but lets hope the end result is funny in any case. Crispin Glover is in it, and he's always good for a laugh/scare.

Hot Tub Time Machine will be out on February 26, 2010.

John Cusack, The Daily Show's Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson are all rumored to be joining the cast of Hot Tub Time Machine, MGM's new scifi time traveling movie, according to Production Weekly.

I'm very surprised with Cusack is in talks for this, although he has been known to make small mistakes on signing on to certain projects - ahem, 1408, and let's go ahead and assume that 2012 will be a total disaster. But Rob Corddry has proven to be hilarious in just about everything he's signed on to, from The Daily Show on down, and Craig Robinson is classic in The Office... maybe Hot Tub Time Machine is a solid comedy flick?

The film, which follows a group of old college buddies who get to re-live their glory days after getting drunk in a time traveling hot tub, starts filming in mid-April in Vancouver with directors Sean Anders & John Morris at the helm. A while back, Heald told Cinematical:

Hot Tub Time Machine is probably the greatest gift anyone's ever given the world. Time will show that it ranks up there with the Statue of Liberty and free Internet porn.

OK, removing my tongue from my cheek for a moment and without giving away anything without first consulting the directors or studio, let's just look at it logically — I was able to sell a script called Hot Tub Time Machine. To an actual movie studio. That in and of itself seems ridiculously implausible, and yet, here we are. I think I should get an award of at least some sort of free sandwich. I will say, without giving anything away, that my goal with the screenplay was awesomeness, through and through. And audiences will not be disappointed.

Why should you trust me? I dunno. Depends on what you're trusting me with. I can make you laugh. But God help you if you go on vacation and trust me to water your plants. Because we all know what will happen. I'll probably end up f****** your plants. Not in a weird way or anything. Just, you know, sexually.

So there you go. The crazy hype has begun, and let's hope nobody lets Heald near their plants.

In 2012, a portal has opened into a parallel universe, which includes an exact double for everyone on Earth. (Yes, even Jet Li.) The doubles must somehow be contacted, in order to prevent the world's impending doom. (And no, we don't know what this has to do with Aztecs either.)

John Cusack will play a part-time limo driver and writer, Jackson Curtis. Chiwetel (Serenity) Ejiofor is also in talks to join the cast. Which begs the question: what would you do if you knew the apocalypse was coming in four years? [Variety]

Nobody will accuse War, Inc. of being subtle, based on the clips I've seen and this synopsis:

War, Inc. is set in the future, when the desert country of Turagistan is torn by a riot after a private corporation, owned by the former US president, has taken over the whole state. John Cusack plays the role of a government assassin, who suppresses his emotions by gobbling down on hot sauce, and is sent to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister. In order to remain undercover, he poses as a production manager of a trade show which includes chaperoning a young pop star, Yonica Babiak (Hilary Duff). Everything changes, however, when the ruthless killer finds himself head-over-heels in love with a sexy reporter. The assassination does not go as planned and things get a bit complicated.