'The Hangover' at 15: Here are 15 things you may not know about the comedy

LAS VEGAS — When the cast and crew of “The Hangover” rolled into Las Vegas in the fall of 2008, people were not impressed.

“I have to say, there’s something wonderful about this city,” Bradley Cooper told the Review-Journal in 2013 during the “Hangover Part III” press junket at Caesars Palace. “I mean, we were in the elevator in the first one with tiger scratches on our necks, and no one cared.”

Then the movie, about four friends — well, three friends and an oddball brother — who check into Caesars Palace for an over-the-top bachelor party they don’t remember, opened on June 5, 2009. It quickly joined “Casino” (1995) and “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) in the pantheon of quintessential Las Vegas movies.

As “The Hangover” turns 15, here are 15 things you may not have known about it:

1. The movie was inspired by a true story — a far less scandalous true story. In 2002, producer Tripp Vinson (“The Exorcism of Emily Rose”) was in Las Vegas with a couple of dozen friends when he went missing from his bachelor party and blacked out.

“And when I was revived, I was in a strip club being threatened with a very, very large bill I was supposed to pay,” Vinson told Deadline in 2009. “It was not a fun experience at the time, but it made for a funny story.”

2. The Caesars Palace suite the characters woke up in doesn’t exist. Production designer Bill Brzeski and his team created that suite at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. It was built on Stage 15, which also was home to the “Ocean’s Eleven” remake.

3. Despite all the evidence of a seriously debauched night in their hotel, Caesars Palace executives only officially requested that one scene be changed. In the script, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) bought the blackout-inducing drugs in the Caesars gift shop.

“They, very rightfully so, said that that couldn’t happen on their property, because it would never happen,” director Todd Phillips told us in 2013. The transaction ultimately took place in a liquor store.

4. Phillips developed a bit of a gambling problem while living in Caesars Palace and could be found playing blackjack in the middle of the night — in his pajamas.

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