John Landis

Started by mutinyco, September 09, 2003, 11:07:20 PM

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72teeth

oohhh, yeah, that would have been pretty good...
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

MacGuffin

John Landis Preps New Horror Film!
by Monika Bartyzel; Cinematical

Forget the potential film about Mad Magazine man William M. Gaines. It looks like John Landis is heading back to the thrills and chills. Dread Central reports that the man behind Thriller and An American Werewolf in London is gearing up to direct Burke and Hare, and that zombie butt-kicker Simon Pegg will star.

Unlike many of the usual horror films, this true story takes murder into the money-making realm. Back in the 1820s, two men in Edinburgh, Scotland -- William Burke and William Hare -- had schemed up a new business venture. Cadavers were in high demand, so they got in the business of selling dead bodies to anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. At first, it was just a stolen body, but soon they began murdering to bring in the cash (£7 to £15). Tenants, prostitutes, friends, relatives, and even an old woman and deaf boy. But they grabbed one too many well-known victim, and were ultimately caught.

Based on the death and life masks found earlier this year, I'll guess that Pegg will play Hare, and that this classic story is going to get a comedic twist. Then again, anything is possible. Laughter, chills, seriousness, silliness -- who cares? Landis is finally getting back to horror!
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

Fisher, Serkis, Wilkinson in 'Burke and Hare'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Isla Fisher, Andy Serkis and Tom Wilkinson have joined Simon Pegg in "Burke and Hare," a horror comedy that marks John Landis' return to feature directing after more than 10 years.

Written by Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft, "Hare" is based on the true story a pair of the U.K.'s earliest serial killers, William Burke and William Hare, gravediggers who lucratively sold the corpses of their victims to a medical college for dissection.

Serkis, fresh off a leading actor BAFTA nomination for "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll," will play Hare opposite Pegg's Burke. (David Tennant was tipped for the role but bowed out when he joined the NBC pilot "Rex Is Not My Lawyer.")

Fisher will play Pegg's girlfriend, an actress looking for a patron who might or might not be an accomplice to the murders.

Wilkinson will play Dr. Robert Knox, an anatomy lecturer looking for fresh corpses.

The movie begins shooting Jan. 31 in Edinburgh and London, bringing Landis back to the scene of his 1981 hit "An American Werewolf in London."

Barnaby Thompson is producing; Ealing Studios' James Spring is executive producing.

Fisher, repped by CAA and Mosaic, most recently appeared in Disney's "Confessions of a Shopaholic."

Serkis, repped by Lou Coulson Associates and Principal Entertainment, is best known for his work as Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" movies and in "King Kong." He is portrays Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn."

Wilkinson next appears in Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" and recently wrapped shooting Michel Gondry's "The Green Hornet" for Sony.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Pubrick

i feel sorry for Landis.

he should've been one of the greatest of all time based on Werewolf alone., but instead he pretty much died by the end of the 80s (MJ videos notwithstanding), and spent most of the 90s reviving or rather shitting on what he and others had built before (blues brothers 2000, Beverley Hills Cop III). and who the hell even knew he made a film in 1998?!

what i get from reading about his decline is that he just couldn't get over a kind of early 80s mentality. he had fresh ideas at the start of that decade which sort of made him a prophet of the shitty genres that exploded after him, but it seems that he just ran out of good ideas.

as far as i know he can't even use the Bogdanovich excuse of being in the midst of any shit that went down, drugs or sex or murders.. or orson welles.. he just kinda lost it. maybe the last 12 years he's spent in TV purgatory will hav inspired him.. doubtful.
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin

John Landis Rails Against Studios: 'They're Not in the Movie Business Anymore'

At the Mar del Plata fest, the "Animal House" director decried "vampire" tech giants and the state of the industry: "Now if a movie doesn't make money its first two days, you're f---ed!"
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina -- "The studios are not in the movie business anymore," said filmmaker and producer John Landis to a group of reporters in the Mar del Plata Film Festival, which is holding a retrospective selection of his work. "Some of us were very lucky. I started to make movies for the studios in the '70s. They were dying, but at least they were still studios."

When asked if Hollywood's response to a lack of original ideas is to rely on remakes, the Three Amigos director replied: "There are no original ideas. What there is -- and this is something no one understands -- is that it is never about the idea, it is about the execution of the idea."

"The film studios are all now subdivisions of huge multinational corporations," he stated. "Time Warner, British Petroleum, Sony -- these aren't companies, they are f---ing nations. They are these giant international things that don't pay taxes! It's ridiculous. They're like pirates. It really has to do with desperation, because they don't know how to get people into the theaters, so they bring back 3D and make all this kind of shit."

"It's very common now to spend more money selling a movie than making a movie. So the reason they make remakes and sequels is because they're brands, like Coca Cola. They remake movies because they have presold titles. It's tragic, because you have things like Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is a brilliant movie, and yet the remakes have made a lot more money," he added.

Landis, who also directed Animal House, contrasted the current state of the studios to counterparts in an earlier era.

"When I did Animal House, I could point at the studio and tell you who owned it: Lew Wasserman was Universal, David Begelman was Columbia, Arthur Krim was United Artists, Steve Ross was Warner Brothers," Landis recalled. "I don't know who owns these companies now. There are no individuals who say, 'Sure, I'll take a risk.' Because the risks are now huge! I'm not that old, but many of my movies made more money the second, third, or fourth week, because we used to have what we call word of mouth. Now if a movie doesn't make money its first two days, you're f---ed!"

The director stated that piracy was another major issue. "One of the problems with the Internet that no one has solved is that for YouTube, Google, Yahoo to exist, they thrive on piracy. They must steal intellectual property; they're like vampires. So how do you fight that?" he asks, adding: "Now there are generations worldwide who believe that when they're downloading something for free, it's not theft. It doesn't even occur to them, so intellectual property has become nothing. You used to be able to write a book, or do a piece, and it was yours, but now you're raped continuously. It's very complicated, and I don't have any answers."

On a more positive note, Landis assured that quality films can still be made. "There will always be good movies being made. It's just harder and harder to see them," he said. "And the studios are no longer interested in making good movies -- they're interested in movies that will bring you in. So you have movies like Avatar, or Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. It's wonderful to look at. Now, is it a good movie? No! But it's entertaining, and it's a spectacle and technically astonishing."

TV programming, in his view, is an oasis for quality fiction for a simple reason: "There are a lot of interesting things being made in cable TV now because they can afford to take the risk."

"Everything is changing. Steve Jobs destroyed the music industry. He decided a song is worth 20 cents, just like that. (Snaps his fingers.) Boom. Destroyed," Landis commented. "So everything has changed. There are no villains here. No one has the handle on it. I understand why they're scared. All their decisions are based on fear."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks