John Landis has directed massively successful movies in his career, practically defining 80s comedy with Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and Three Amigos. He also dipped his toe into horror at the time with An American Werewolf in London, and seems to be combining the two with his new film Burke and Hare, a comedy about two graverobbers turned murderers in 19th century Edinburgh. The movie isn't getting much attention now that its headed toward release in the U.S., maybe because it's apparently not very good. But don't think that's the end of Landis's horror career.
Bloody Digusting talked to the director by phone recently and, seemingly just to cover their bases, asked him if he planned to make any more horror films. As it turned out, he already had one in the works. As he told the interviewer, he and Alexandre Gavras, a French filmmaker, are working together on a monster movie that they plan to shoot in Paris within the next two years. He didn't reveal much detail beyond that, but the casting process will be a challenge, since the France-set movie will also require English-speaking actors:
"It's interesting…my cast has to be bilingual because it's being shot in French and English. We know who's gonna star in it, but this is all off the radar right now [so I can't tell you who they are]."
It's rare that you hear a director talking up the existence of a project for the first time while also promising he knows who his cast will be, and that suggests he won't be casting high-profile bilingual actors like Marion Cotillard, VIncent Cassel or the like. But it's more fun anyway to see a project come together with actors who are apparently willing to wait patiently for things to come together. Now we just have to wonder if, after what's apparently a bad misfire with Burke and Hare, a John Landis monster movie is something we actually want to see.
