John Landis Talks with Edgar Wright About 'Animal House'

Edgar Wright continued his film festival named The Wright Stuff II at New Beverly Cinema with "Animal House," and joining him was special guest John Landis who directed it and succeeded in making the first "adult gross out comedy ever." John said that director Todd Phillips has already made three movies where he did shot for shot steals from his movie, and even Edgar had to admit that he may have subconsciously stolen the taking coat gag for "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" from it as well.

"Animal House" was Landis' third film, and he made it soon after finishing "Kentucky Fried Movie." However, he was not the first choice to direct as it was initially offered to John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy"), then later to Richard Fleischer ("20,000 Leagues Under The Sea") and Mike Nichols ("The Graduate") who turned it down. Landis said they all passed on it saying:

"Are you f***ing kidding me?"

Landis was drawn to it by "a very smart script" written by Doug Kenney, Harold Ramis, and Chris Miller. Landis gave much credit to Kenney who had come to this from the Harvard Lampoon where he was "consistently brilliant." Kenney wrote scripts called "Laser Orgy Girls" and "Charles Manson In High School," but then he did "High School Yearbook" which eventually evolved into "Animal House." The thought was that there were so many off-color elements that it made more sense to set it in college.

"Animal House" marked the film debut of many young actors who soon became big stars in their own right. It was John Belushi's first movie, and he was already an established star thanks to "Saturday Night Live." Tom Hulce was doing the play "Equis" on Broadway when casr, and Bruce McGill who was discovered doing Shakespeare's "Richard III." As for Karen Allen, she originally drove her friend to audition for it but wasn't planning to audition herself. But Landis took one look and said to her:

"First off, you just lost a friend. Second, we want you in the movie!"

Others from "Saturday Night Live" were considered, but Lorne Michaels was getting pissed about losing more of his cast. While Landis got Belushi despite a crazy schedule that only made him available for 3 days a week, Lorne refused to let Dan Aykroyd be in it. Then there was Chevy Chase, the show's first breakout star, who was getting offered everything and decided to do "Foul Play" with Goldie Hawn instead.

The only veterans in "Animal House" were Tim Matheson who started off as a child actor, and Donald Sutherland who was a big star then. All of Donald's scenes were shot in two days, and he was offered $35,000 plus gross points. Donald instead took an offer of a flat $50,000 which turned out later to be a mistake as the movie made over $140 million. Everyone else was paid scale except for Belushi, and the horse got $150,000. This led Landis to admit:

"I got paid less than the horse!"

The late John Vernon who played Dean Wormer was talked about quite a bit. Vernon played his role so "deadly straight," and Landis said that he just got what it was all about. Vernon was also the only one involved with "Animal House" who knew it would be a success saying:

"No one realizes what an important movie this will be."

"Animal House" had a budget of $2.1 million, was shot in 32 days, and averaged about 43 setups each day of shooting. Landis said that the studio left them alone during the making of it, but they later complained about certain things. They did not like the actors who were chosen and even said:

"Why'd you hire John Vernon?! He's a television actor, a villain in a Clint Eastwood movie!"

The studio also voiced concern over the scene where some of the characters visit a black bar. They feared "black people will riot" and that they would "tear up the screen." But Landis and the producers were adamant that the scene was told from a white person's perspective and that it was meant to be subjective. Landis even got Richard Pryor's take on it, and he said:

"I think it's funny and white people are crazy!"

Then the studio had an issue with the girls never being shown going home after the party. This led one executive to ask:

"How do we know those girls weren't raped?"

Test screening "Animal House" was an interesting story. The filmmakers took it to Denver where it had audiences screaming with laughter. Landis even taped the audience's reaction and played it for Belushi over the phone. As a result, Belushi jumped at the chance to attend another screening of it in Atlanta where it ended up being shown to a bunch of "drunken booksellers" who sat in stone cold silence throughout. Landis said Belushi came out of it saying the movie needed to be recut, be was told to shut up by the producers who reminded him he wasn't around for the Denver preview.

In the end, audiences found "Animal House" to be extremely funny and filled with many laugh-out loud moments, and that's even if not everybody got the John Belushi erection joke. That there was a sold out audience at the New Beverly is proof that it has stood the test of time. Landis thanked everyone for coming out and said that the movie will soon be debuting on Blu-Ray, and that all the grain that was taken out while being remastered has been put right back in.