An American Werewolf in London Remake Gets a Writer

Posted by on August 5th, 2010   Filed under: Horror, Remakes
Source: L.A. Times

Twilight fever is still holding strong in America right now, resulting in a plenty of vampire movies being greenlit, but now thanks to the hotness of Taylor Lautner, werewolf movies are also starting to be considered as well. Last year we learned that a remake of An American Werewolf in London was in development, and even though certain teenagers might mistake it for being a direct rip-off of Twilight, it seems that Dimension Films still plans on moving forward with it. They are now in the process of hiring a writer to adapt the original, although the person they are in talks with doesn’t really inspire much confidence. Yep… it’s the guy who wrote The Number 23.

According to the L.A. Times, Dimension Films is in about to bring Fernley Phillips on board, best known for writing the Joel Schumacher thriller The Number 23 starring Jim Carrey. Wait, did I say, “best known”? I meant, “only known”. He doesn’t have any other writing credits to his name, although he does have a couple of projects in development including a remake of the Colombian horror film At The End Of The Spectra.

I haven’t seen The Number 23, but I did hear that it was pretty terrible. Whether or not that was his fault remains to be seen, however, something tells me this new take will not maintain the comedic elements of the original. What do you think, could An American Werewolf in London benefit from a reboot? Who would you like to see direct this?



  • Darth_Siskel

    This is sad. Does Hollywood really want the last 2decades of American cinema to be remembered as nothing more than prequels, sequels, remakes, re-imaginings, reboots and the constant fucking mining of great ORIGNAL ideas from the 80s?
    I take it personally, coz I’m a child of the 80s. So theyre remaking all the stuff from MY DVD collection.

    Safe to say, after the 90s everything went to hell.

  • Ben

    Get over it and stop exaggerating. The only reason you don’t remember it happening before the 90s is because of nostalgia.

  • Darth_Siskel

    Don’t remember what happening?

    And please don’t claim to know me or the inner workings of my psyche, Ben.

  • I wonder if there was someone in 1939 that was like “They’ve already made it, done sequels, and RE-made it, but they’re making a NEW Wizard of Oz? In COLOR? This is BULLSHIT!”. See also: “Ben Hur”.

    In defense of #2, I think I understand. I’m 32, and in the last few years they’ve been re-making/re-vamping/re-whatevering stuff that I have a closer connection to, because I I grew up on the originals. I’m not upset though, and Darth_Siskel, this period isn’t going to be remembered as THE period of remakes, etc., as Hollywood’s been recycling itself for approximately forever. Like you said, that’s how old we are, but don’t even begin to think that this is a new phenomenon and that Hollywood is out to get you. Maybe the people a little older than us were pissed when stuff they grew up on was re-made for a different time, and the kids below us will be furious when “Salute Your Shorts” is given a darker, grittier edge in a few years, but none of these periods are going to be marked in cinematic history as the time that Hollywood ran out of ideas, either. The stupid shit, re-makes or not, will do a fine enough job of erasing themselves from our memories. I’m sure there’s plenty of crap from the 80’s that you WOULDN’T mind seeing re-made, because it (and even a lot of the stuff you probably DID like) really wasn’t that great to begin with. To say that you take the raping and pillaging of your 80’s memories personally is ridiculous, because not only are many of us children of the 80’s greatly unaffected because we understand that this is the nature of the beast, but it’s going to seem even more ridiculous a few years down the road when you’re still railing against 80’s remakes when 90’s remakes are all the rage.

    This all reminds me that I’ve been joking with friends that my ultimate goal is to write a very lousy but very marketable book and get it published, so that if nothing else, when a movie is made and eventually re-made, all sorts of people will come out and support my work, talking about how the movie will be shit, because the book was so good, and so on and so on. It’s got to be a pretty good gig if you can get it.

  • Darth_Siskel

    First off, PlanB I’m not against remakes.
    Scarface
    The Thing
    The Departed
    Are just a few of the many examples of great remakes that I love. But theres a diffrence between remakes such as these and the ones made today.

    It is a fact that in the last 2decades that rights and properties of/for films have never been bought up in such quick sucession. Why? Because it has a built in audience and is guarnateed to bring back somekind of return. Hollywood insiders have said on many occasions that it’s :
    “not due to the fact that we’re out of ideas. It’s jus they don’t know how to market something new and or diffrent”
    EXAMPLE – Will Ferrel movie Stranger Than Fiction.
    Not you typical Ferrel comedy,doesnt fit into any genre.
    EXAMPLE 2- most(if not all)of the great horror movies of the last decade have come from overseas…to later be remade by Hollywood.

    You get the feeling that remakes of the past were done because someone out there had a wild hair up their arse to do a diffrent take on the source matirial.
    Or wanted to do what couldnt be done with the original.
    They are their own beast. Almost unidentifiable from the original.

    Oh and you used the examples of
    The Wizard Of Oz – it was originally a novel. And thus open to interpretation. Much like Sherlock Holmes or Dracula. It was never a remake of a previous film. AND…it was a musical version of the source matirial.

    Ben Hur – was never done on the epic scale originally intended.

  • Darth_Siskel

    There is nothing wrong with the movies that theyre remaking to warrant a remake nor is their any drive to make anything diffrent based on the source matirial. Theyre jus draggin more milage out of something that worked in the past.

  • BigHungry

    NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    This will no doubt have worse effects, than the first

  • I just have to say… Look at The Lost boys… and then The Lost Boys “the tribe”. They had an opportunity there… and the tribe could have been a great movie, as long as it had a decent cast and a good plot. They messed that up. I LOVED the lost boys… grew up on it… And An American Werewolf in London was the first horror movie I saw in the theater… I was 6 years old when I saw it, so it holds a special place in my heart. I dont mind the re-makes… as long as they dont SCREW IT UP!

  • Zoo

    Why is the Thundercats logo in the background? An American Lion-o in London?

  • Joseph Lucas,III

    I want a reboot of this movie.I want new characters in the movie.