John Landis doesn’t want Max to remake An American Werewolf in London

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

A while back, Max Landis provided a small update on the status of the remake of his father John Landis's 1981 classic AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, which he is writing and thinking of directing. During an interview with Kevin Smith at the San Diego Comic-Con, the younger Landis said that he was "halfway through" writing the script… and while fielding questions about the project, he seemed to indicate that his father had shared some strong opinions with him about it.

Max Landis didn't go into detail, but when Kevin Smith said it was an "adorable story" that a father and son would make their own movies from the same material, he responded, laughing, 

You should ask my dad my dad how he feels about it.

KS: What happened? What conversation? What was that like?

ML: One conversation? Have you met my dad?

In a new interview, Phil Brown of Collider has taken Max's advice and asked John what he thinks of his son remaking AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. As it turns out, he does indeed have strong opinions on the subject, and he doesn't think the idea is as adorable as Kevin Smith does: 

COLLIDER: Are you involved at all in the American Werewolf In London remake that your son Max is writing?

LANDIS: I get money.

COLLIDER: It must be a surreal situation for the two of you.

LANDIS: Truthfully, I’ve not seen his script. I advised him not to do it. I think he’s putting himself in a bad position. My son is brilliant, he really is, and he wants to do it. So what am I going to say? No? I know it won’t be as bad as An American Werewolf In Paris, which was shit. So, I don’t know. He’s a great writer. He’s been writing since he was 7. He wrote a whole series of scripts about these characters called Yelp and Dopey, two dumb dogs, when he was under ten. They were so funny.

So there you go. John Landis doesn't like the idea of his son doing AMERICAN WEREWOLF and has told him not to do it – not because he's precious about the material, but for the admirable fatherly concern that his son is putting himself in a bad situation by doing it. In his interview, Max Landis said that he's stapling his face to a bullseye by moving forward with the project, so he clearly knows that some fans are going to have it out for him for daring to do this. But he seems willing to risk the negativity… and yeah, this probably will turn out better than AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS.

It's also likely to be better than John Landis's BLUES BROTHERS 2000