Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Brothers Pictures

Consider the competition slate for the Cannes Film Festival officially scrambled. Or, you know, maybe not: on Thursday, Warner Brothers announced that it was preparing a third installment in the “Hangover” series, its bawdy, billion-dollar grossing comedy franchise about three friends whose travels invariably result in collective memory loss followed by farcical efforts to retrace their troublemaking steps.

Warner Brothers said in a news release that the series stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis would reprise their roles as the three friends, Phil, Stu and Alan, in “The Hangover Part III,” which is planned for release on May 24, 2013. Todd Phillips, who directed the two previous films, is once again on board as director. He will also produce “Part III” and write the script with Craig Mazin, his screenwriting collaborator on “Part II.”

The original “Hangover,” released in 2009, set its characters loose on Las Vegas and sold more than $467 million in tickets worldwide. The 2011 sequel, set in Bangkok, was even more lucrative and grossed a further $581 million globally, but took lumps from critics who called it a retread of the first film.

No setting or plot description for “Part III” was immediately offered, but Mr. Phillips said in a statement: “We’re going to surprise a lot of people with the final chapter we have planned. It will be a fitting conclusion to our three-part opera of mayhem, despair and bad decisions.”