Writer-director Max Landis has his fair share of detractors. There are some who accuse the man of failing upwards, that his status as the son of cherished filmmaker John Landis has landed him some choice jobs (the recent sci-fi series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detection Agency, for one) through good ol’ Hollywood nepotism, despite the fact that his films have almost uniformly performed poorly at the box-office and with critics. His most vocal critics express complete bafflement every time the writer responsible for such widely panned flops as American UltraVictor Frankenstein, and Mr. Right lands an increasingly high-profile gig, their only conclusion that the Landis name is what has gotten him this far.

The haters shall be silenced once and for all when they find out that Landis has signed a new deal to write and direct a remake of the horror-comedy classic An American Werewolf in London, a film that John Landis directed in 1981. Deadline has the exclusive that Universal will keep it in the family by handing the reins to Landis the younger, with producers from The Walking Dead also on board. Though opening to less than auspicious reviews and ticket sales, the original quickly amassed a cult following and lives on today as one of the more beloved monster flicks. The story of a pair of backpackers (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) attacked by a werewolf in the British countryside, the film earned left-of-center fame for its innovative practical effects, turning man into a lycanthrope before the audience’s very eyes.

All young Max Landis must do, then, is find a new way to tell this story without squandering all of the goodwill his father has already built up for it. Shouldn’t be hard work for the guy who can bang a script out in, like, a day.

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