Hey! A remake of “An American Werewolf in London.”

…You know something? I’ll allow it:

An American Werewolf in London is officially getting a remake with The Walking Dead‘s David Albert and Robert Kirkman producing through their Skybound Entertainment for Universal Pictures. The remake of filmmaker John Landis’ classic 1981 comedic horror film will be written by his son Max Landis, who also is attached to direct. The news comes after the elder Landis and filmmaker Anthony Waller (An American Werewolf in Paris) sealed a deal with the studio on the rights. The younger Landis’ deal is being negotiated. Skybound has a first-look production deal with Universal.

Why? Because it was made in 1981, and it’s a horror flick.  It’s now thirty-five years later, and let’s face it: the state of the art in makeup prosthetics and special effects has advanced in the interim. The original film is a genuine classic of the genre, so I understand if people are automatically jaundiced over the process, but: given the production crew… it might not suck?

Guess we’ll see!

6 thoughts on “Hey! A remake of “An American Werewolf in London.””

  1. If it didn’t involve Walking Dead crew, yeah .. I wouldn’t.
    .
    Even so, I’m .. nervous .. because the reason the original worked had *so much to do* with the mix of comic and horror timing .. and The Walking Dead spent *way too much time* on agriculture.
    .
    Mew

  2. Like every remake that comes along, I ask the same question. What’s wrong with the original? Most of the time people can’t give me a good enough answer to make me say it’s a good idea to remake it.

    I’d prefer filmmakers make movies from original ideas or adapted from other medium than to remaking movies that don’t need it.

    1. It’s a good rule. In this particular case the answer may very well be: “the Landis family wants to take another slap of this, only this time with proper SFX.” Whether that qualifies as passing the bar for justifiable remakes is an individual choice, methinks. 🙂

      1. The other issue is, to be generous, tastes have changed. Movies like Ladyhawke and Highlander are deemed too slow, not enough action.

      2. The fact that Landis is in on it is a decent reason. As for the SFX, I recall it being pretty good in the original. Note that I’m partial to practical SFX over CGI (Empire Yoda looked better than prequel Yoda).
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        Side note: Is there an email notifying system for the comments section on this site. I’d like to get notification if one of my comments are replied to.

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