Did The Twilight Zone scandal really hurt his career?
He was still making star-studded movies left and right. The quality of the scripts took a nosedive after 1992, but that happens with most directors.
shareOh good lord...of course it did.
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MovieChat Forums > John Landis Discussion > Did The Twilight Zone scandal really hur...
What scandal? I never heard of it.
shareWhat scandal?
Oh, the killing of a famous actor and two children with a helicopter. Except Landis himself did not FLY the helicopter, meaning he was cleared of all charges.
To clarify, Landis was directing his segment of the Twilight Zone movie back in the 80s. The plot involved Vic Morrow as a bigot/racist who had just lost a promotion to a person of colour, and in typical Twilight Zone style he is transported through time to various era's, such as WWII, Klu Klux Klan era and Vietnam, where he was seen as jew, black person and Vietcong respectively.
In the infamous scene which was obviously cut from the movie, Morrow was running through a large pond with two young Vietnamese kids under his arm, a helicopter flew overhead but a large explosive squib went off too near the chopper, it nosedive right into them and killed all 3 outright.
Lands was called to account for various safety failures, such as why the children were working late at night, why no stunt people, and why the explosive charge was too large.
In the end Landis was not charged, though I think a few others involved in the production were.
> In the end Landis was not charged, though I think a few others involved in the production were.
Actually he was charged with involuntary manslaughter, tried, and acquitted.
> Lands was called to account for various safety failures, such as why the children were working late at night, why no stunt people, and why the explosive charge was too large.
And he was repeatedly warned of the dangers of doing the shot the way he wanted. He also knew he was working the child actors beyond legal hours. He intentionally concealed those things from the children's parents.
He knew he was acting recklessly. His concealment of facts from the parents demonstrated premeditation and consciousness of guilt. And three people, including two children, died as a direct consequence of his actions.
I hope the son of a bitch burns in hell.
As I heard it, the helicopter pilot expressed concerns about flying below a certain altitude due to safety/stability/visibility being compromised by how big/close Landis wanted the explosions.
The pyro guy expressed similar concerns about how big Landis wanted the explosions and how low he wanted the helo to fly in the shot.
Landis then lied to both of them, telling the helo pilot the explosions would be smaller so he could safely fly lower. Also told the pyro guy the helo pilot wouldn’t fly that low, so he could safely make bigger explosions.
Steven Spielberg severed all ties with Landis after the accident. He was going to produce movies with him, but ended it.
shareLandis's wife Deborah Nadoolman never worked as costume designer on another Spielberg related film either. She hardly got any further work outside of Landis films, as a matter of fact.
sharehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2NcLN1AT-s
Go to the 10:34 mark of this video.
It wasn't the scandal that hurt his career but his reaction to it. He acted as if it was all just an "oopsie" and then went right back to shooting films as if nothing had happened. Not only that but he acted even more cocky and self-entitled after the incident, at a time when he should've been humbled, if Eddie Murphy is to be believed.
sharehttps://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/tl2qw8/comment/i1ufuyn/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
From this article:
https://slate.com/culture/2019/06/max-landis-abuse-allegations-louis-ck.html
“[Max] Landis’ father reportedly threw a one-year “anniversary party” to celebrate his acquittal on charges of involuntary manslaughter after three people, including two children, were killed in an accident during the filming of Landis’ segment of the Twilight Zone: The Movie.”
No internet back then, but yes, it did have an impact.
sharelook at the list of films he made before the incident, and compare that to the list of films he made after the incident.
other than coming to america, i dont think any of his post-1983 films were successful. some of his films, like the stupids and blues brothers 2000, were considered amongst the worst of the whole decade.
he mainly got hurt but his Speilberg connections. he was on track to be a great writer/director type, but was forced to become a director-for-hire.
Moviemaking is a business, and while Landis was largely gold at the box office, he caused problems for the entire film industry and now came with a lot of risk attached; it was understandable that after the trial, studios wanted to keep their distance, and they largely did. After 1987, Landis worked on only two more major films, Coming to America in 1988 (an enormous hit) and Beverly Hills Cop 3 in 1994 (a largely forgotten film that suffered from script/budget problems, was panned by critics, and was a disappointment at the box office). Both of these films had one thing in common: Eddie Murphy. Murphy at that point was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood; he decided to hire his former Trading Places director, and given his status, he was going to get what he wanted. Absent Murphy, I suspect that Landis would not have been hired.share
Setting aside the two Murphy films, by the early 1990s, what you see from Landis is comedy, horror, and documentary work on a largely decreasing budget. He had a few flops and after that, no real work in film other than production and small parts in other people's movies. Obviously, most people in Hollywood would love to have 1/100th of the success John Landis did, and I’m sure that Landis has made a great living by any objective standard with even his work since the mid-1990s. But at the time Twilight Zone was made, Landis was just 31 years old and already one of the most in demand directors working in Hollywood. There’s no reason that he couldn’t be making major studio films today—many of his peers still are—but he obviously isn’t.