Cue The Tequila

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More surprising, The Real Cancun also succeeds as a teen comedy. "We grew up seeing the Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello movies, and that would seem so corny now," says producer Murray. "There are moments in this movie that if they were scripted, they would feel corny, but when they're real, they don't." If Alan, the teetotaler virgin who is transformed by a few shots of tequila into the nerd king of Cancun, were a written character, he would be a lame archetype. Instead he is hilariously compelling. Sure, we know his newfound popularity is mostly owing to his having a film crew in tow, but we're willing to ignore the Heisenberg uncertainty principle here. If the movie is shot like a documentary, we're willing to pretend it's a documentary no matter how staged it is. "There were things that the producers told me I couldn't do," says Casey, 25, a Miami model. "There was one point where I hooked up with Trishelle from The Real World Las Vegas [who was there for MTV], and the producer said I wasn't allowed to hang out with her because she's under contract for other things."

And unlike documentarians, the producers, who have to work with MTV in their day jobs, felt it prudent to edit out the more controversial scenes, such as the one in which the twins have an angry, cursing fight with rapper Snoop Dogg in his post-concert trailer after, they say, he tried to get amorous with them. "He's just gross. He has a wife and kids at home," says twin Nicole, who then states the contrapositive of the real lesson of reality programming: "Celebs like him are just average normal people. But he's more of a slut than the average person."

If the material is so strong that the producers could afford to toss the Snoop scene, it's a wonder no one has done a reality movie before. Like reality TV, a reality film is supercheap, and as Jackass proved, there's an audience willing to pay $9 for what it gets free on television. "We pitched this to the usual suspects a year and a half ago," says Murray, who, despite having a relationship with MTV since 1992, was turned down by MTV Films before the idea was picked up by New Line. "Mike Fleiss helped us because it made New Line realize it had something. We're thankful to Mike for coming along, and now we're thankful to him for going away."

Fleiss and Universal are waiting to see how well The Real Cancun does, which will undoubtedly affect any decision as to when or if The Quest will be released. Equally eager to see The Real Cancun are the cast members, who took their roles not only for the free margaritas and $1,000 but also in hopes of snaring acting jobs. Twin Roxanne looks forward to being famous, even if it's for her wet-T-shirt antics. "I'd rather be known for this instead of being smart or something," she says. "There's a million people who are smart. There's only 16 of us who were in Cancun together."

Some of the cast members want to see the movie just to find out what happened. "I don't think I did anything wrong," says Casey, who spends the first half of the movie asking women to shower with him. "Though when I drink I don't remember things. I always black out."

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