eGuider: John Landis
Filmmaker

John is set to direct the film Burke and Hare for Ealing Studios, a project that is currently in pre-production. This “very black romantic comedy” will begin shooting this October in Edinburgh and London. Landis rose to international recognition as director of the wildly successful Animal House. With blockbusters such as The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos! and Coming to America, Landis has directed some of the most popular film comedies of all time. Other feature credits include Into the Night, Innocent Blood and the comedy/horror genre classic An American Werewolf in London, which he also wrote. In 1983 Landis wrote and directed the groundbreaking music video of Michael Jackson's Thriller, created originally to play as a theatrical short. Thriller forever changed MTV and the concept of music videos. Landis has also been active in television as the executive producer (and often director) of the Ace- and Emmy Award-winning HBO series Dream On. Other TV shows produced by his company, St. Clare Entertainment (St. Clare is the patron saint of television), include Weird Science, Sliders, Honey I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, Campus Cops and The Lost World. Most recently he directed the Emmy Award winning HBO film Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project.