You’ve got to love the teenager who puts his out-of-touch dad on blast. OK, that’s not exactly the deal, but it’s what this story comically reminds us of. It starts with Dad, venerable ’80s filmmaker John Landis (“The Blues Brothers,” “Trading Places,” Michael Jackson‘s iconic “Thriller” video), saying that his son, Max Landis‘ sequel project, “Chronicle 2,” is somewhat troubled. And it started on The Playlist.
We spoke to Landis last year, and in discussing the difficulties of the film industry, the older Landis began relating examples and stories about his son, the writer behind the surprise low-budget kids-become-extraordinary film “Chronicle.” “He wrote a sequel, and it’s amazing,” Landis told us. “And the studio read it and said, ‘we want ‘Chronicle’ again!’ And he said, ‘no, this is the sequel, it’s the evolution,’ and they said ‘no, we want that movie again!’ So it’s difficult, we’re dealing with a difficult business.”
But Daaaaaaad, you’re wrong! The young Landis gave a little smackdown to his old man, telling IGN adamantly, “My father is not involved in ‘Chronicle 2.’ it was not his place to say that” and added that, “‘Chronicle 2′” is still in development.
“‘Chronicle 2’ is in an interesting place right now. It’s moving along. There was this whole announcement that they wanted to just do the same thing again because my father said that. My father is not involved in ‘Chronicle 2.’ He doesn’t know the process, it was not his place to say that. The truth is when you have a movie that was as successful as ‘Chronicle’ was, it’s not as quick of a process. There are a lot more voices coming in and saying, ‘this is what the sequel should be,’ because there’s a bigger expectation and a bigger fear of failure. And that’s really what’s going on with ‘Chronicle 2.’ Josh (Trank) is directing ‘Fantastic Four.’ I’m doing a hundred other movies. ‘Chronicle 2’ has become this question of ‘How do we all make a movie that we all respect?’. And that’s true to what ‘Chronicle’ is. There’s no one at the studio who wants to make a bad movie. They all want to make a good movie just as much as I do. We’re not fighting.”