Guess the Plot Of Todd Phillips' Top-Secret Staycation!

There's perhaps nothing a harried studio executive loves more than a bankable producer striding into his office, dispensing of the day's obligatory small talk, and beginning a pitch with a one-word title that sums up the entire concept in a tidy, possibility-evoking package. Scripts, after all, are like so thick, and the coverage on those scripts is, um, totally boring. But a sexily evocative one-word title, in its utterly efficient, almost magical simplicity, can activate a Gladwellian "blink" response in the decision-making center of the executive's brain, rendering the rest of the meeting a struggle to ignore the blinding green light that's suddenly strobing in his field of vision and suppress the urge to yelp, "Sold!" before the actual pitch is complete.

So, yeah. According to Variety, Warner Bros. and The Hangover's Todd Phillips, now the All-Time R-Rated Comedy King as his love letter to Vegas' soul-despoiling power has steamrolled its way to an astounding $226 million, are getting together for: Staycation. (Staycation. SOLD!) Along for the ride are the busy writing team of Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, who've also rewritten Man-Witch, a movie with a two-word title no less evocative of its man-witching premise than Staycation is of its staycationing one.

But what is Staycation about, exactly, besides a vague (if tantalizing) promise to explore the comedic possibilities of the recession-necessitated trend of "vacationing" without actually going anywhere? Because Hollywood is a place built on caution and paranoia, the studio and creative team have declined to disclose the movie's plot, fearing their rivals will rush their own, competing staying-at-home-for-vacation films into production, negating their first-mover advantage in the staying-at-home-for-vacation space. (Variety did get their sources to reveal it's the kind of "male-driven laffer" we'd expect from Phillips.) So in the absence of an officially sanctioned logline, we're going to take our own stab at three possible ideas Warner Bros. approved:

1. "With their wives and girlfriends using up their scant, recession-depleted funds to jet off to a bachelorette party weekend at an Ojai spa, four cash-strapped best friends decide to make the best of their guy-time by staycationing at one of their homes. Things quickly get out of hand and the good times devolve into debauchery, as the guys get wasted, accidentally burn down the garage, and sell off the bride-to-be's most cherished possession to pay for a quicky repair before the women return." (Edgier alternate: one of them accidentally kills a hooker they hired off Craigslist and burns down the garage to cover up the crime.)

2. "It's like Mancation, but with staying. Oh, Vince Vaughn and Galifianakis are already in."

3. Eerily echoing an earlier misunderstanding that had Warner Bros. buying a Phillips pitch about Sloppy Joes when they misheard his title as "Manwich," the studio again blunders in acquiring Steakation, which they envision as an emotional journey in which four childhood friends crisscross the globe in search of both a perfectly prepared ribeye and a better understanding of their complicated relationships with each other.

Phillips taps scribes for 'Staycation' [Variety]