With world attention newly focused on Michael Jackson's Quincy Jones-produced "Thriller" recordings and the accompanying John Landis-directed "Thriller" video, remake rights to Lycanthrope Productions' "An American Werewolf in London" have reportedly been sold to Dimension films, the 'genre' arm of Miramax.
The project is being developed by producers Sean and Bryan Furst of the upcoming feature "Daybreakers", set for a January 2010 release.
Both Landis original "Thriller" video and "An American Werewolf In London" feature used Rick Baker's Oscar winning make-up effects team.
The 1981 US/UK comedy horror, starred actors David Naughton, Griffin Dunne and Jenny Agutter, winning an Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup.
Landis came up with the story while working in Yugoslavia as a PA on the Clint Eastwood war comedy "Kelly's Heroes", driving in a car on location when he came across a group of gypsies performing rituals on a man being buried so that he would not 'rise from the grave'.
This made Landis realize he could never personally be able 'to confront the undead' and came up with the idea of American college students 'David Kessler' (Naughton) and 'Jack Goodman' (Dunne), backpacking across the Yorkshire moors when they are attacked by a werewolf.
Landis wrote his first draft of "An American Werewolf in London" in 1969 before securing $10 million in financing 12 years later.
A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1997, written/directed by Dirk Maggs, with Jenny Agutter, Brian Glover and John Woodvine. The roles of David and Jack were played by actors Eric Meyers and William Dufris.
Maggs' script added the backstory that people living in 'East Proctor' were settlers from Eastern Europe that brought the lycanthropy with them. The werewolf who bites David is related to 'George Hackett' ('Alex Price' in the film), recently escaped from an asylum where he is held under the name 'Larry Talbot' (the name of actor Lon Chaney as the werewolf in Universal's "The Wolf Man")...
