Max Landis Teases Original Cast Cameos In ‘American Werewolf in London’ Remake

Kim Taylor-Foster
TV Movies
TV Movies Horror

Max Landis is the son of John Landis, the brilliant director behind several celebrated films, including 1978’s Animal Houseas well as 1980s classics The Blues Brothers and Eddie Murphy vehicles Trading Places and Coming to America. And then there’s American Werewolf in London – possibly the greatest comedy-horror ever made.

Son Max has followed in his father’s footsteps and is currently plying his trade as the creative force behind zany BBC America series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. But he’s also  trying to get a remake of his Dad’s classic lycanthrope movie off the ground.

FANDOM spoke to Landis Jr. as he was promoting Dirk Gently at New York Comic Con and asked him about his approach to the proposed remake. He proceeded to summarise the entire plot of the original movie. We surmised that he won’t be straying too far from his Dad’s much-admired version. And then we asked him about cameos for the original cast.

Max responded with the following: “Griffin Dunne… what about Jenny Agutter? Come on, Jenny’s killing it right now. She was in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It made me so excited! Yeah, there’s cameos from ideally literally everyone.”

Max-Landis
Max Landis at New York Comic Con.

It won’t be Gus Van Sant’s ‘Psycho’

He added: “There’s no guarantee that movie will exist but I’m very excited about it. I’m not here to remake American Werewolf in London into something it isn’t, I want to do everything from the original movie modern, and that’s it. I mean, not Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. There will be my stuff in there, but if it exists I hope it’s good. I’m going to do my best to make it great.”

Gus Van Sant’s Psycho remake was a near-shot-for-shot copy of the Hitchcock original with a cast that included Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. It flopped at the box office and was panned by critics.

Landis also said that he wasn’t working with his father at all on the project.

Catch Season 2 of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency from October 14.

Kim Taylor-Foster
Kim Taylor-Foster is Entertainment Editor for Fandom in the UK. She was raised on an unsteady diet of video nasties and violent action flicks.