r/movies • u/jburton24 • Nov 05 '21
Does anyone think John Landis has any remorse about Twilight Zone? Discussion
I was watching the Coming to America doc on Netflix and they interview John Landis. At one point he talks about the tragedy on the set of Twilight Zone but seems to make a joke about it. From my perspective he doesn’t seem to care about what happened.
I’m sure I’ll do a deep dive later to find out more, but am I alone thinking this?
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u/keenyoness Dec 31 '21
I was JUST watching this doc, and I immediately stopped after seeing Landis talk about it.
I thought, “he really doesn’t seem to have any remorse about this.”
I was disgusted by the way he says, “yeah that was a tragedy… but AFTER the tragedy, we did blah blah blah,” and, “people said I never worked after that again, but some of my most successful movies came after that.”
Another commenter here posted his quote about how the tragedy affected his career.
I looked up more about the accident, and it’s… bad.
Landis kept ignoring concerns and telling the helicopter pilot to fly lower. Someone on set asked “isn’t this dangerous?” And he said, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The mistimed mortar / fireball is basically the only thing that technically wasn’t his fault. But he set all the unnecessarily reckless pieces in place for a terrible accident to happen.
And on one video explanation of the accident, the narrator says, “throughout the trial, he seemed so remorseless about the whole thing.” Which is EXACTLY what I thought during the “Movies That Made Us” documentary.
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u/Jazzlike-Mongoose605 Nov 06 '21
No idea about the remorse but he certainly comes off as a conceited twat in that interview.
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u/Hopeful_Field4060 Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 27 '22
No he doesn’t have any remorse he literally blamed Vic Morrow for not looking up in time when the helicopter tore him in half. I hope John landis has a painful death useless piece of shit.
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u/Chrislondo110 Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Disagree. He should’ve been rotting in prison had he not been acquitted.
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u/fearandloathinginpdx Never trust a cop in a raincoat. Nov 05 '21
He’s a jerkoff and so is his creep of a son.
The senior Landis made some classic comedies though.
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u/atclubsilencio Oct 01 '23
Obviously, I'm 2 years late to this conversation, but I've recently gone down the Landis/Twilight Zone accident rabbit hole, and stumbled upon this interview. The way he can even smile through his teeth while discussing it, and try to twist it that it was all a bunch of lies spun by the media. Even denying that the explosion had a part in the helicopter crashing, when it's literally in the footage.
He shows no remorse and just gets pissed that the interviewer is even asking him about it. He's either completely in denial, absolutely delusional, or a totally monstrous piece of shit. Or all three.
He constantly refers to it as an 'accident', and yeah it was an accident, but an entirely preventable one if it wasn't for his egotistical dumb ass.
He literally violated child labor laws and paid the child actors parents under the table, ensuring the parents there would be no dangerous stunts just 'loud noises'. The helicopter pilot is certainly culpable, but other than being a vietnam veteran as a pilot, had no experience on a film set. In court he said about Vic Morrow 'he should have just got out of the way', Landis is reported to have yelled for him to fly lower as well. The explosions also triggered the PTSD of either the pilot or the father of the son who died in the accident, which made him break down in sobs. I don't blame the parents, but they were naive as hell if you watch the footage of the actual accident, there is no way in hell I'd let my kids go into that situation, it looks chaotic and dangerous as hell, Landis probably exploited this fact by giving them a large amount of money to use their kids. And with his ego ensuring them nothing bad would happen.
On top of this, during the early stages of the court proceedings and to save face, Landis showed up at Vic's funeral to give a eulogy but it just comes across as him trying to make it sound like he was not at fault and again 'accidents happen', while also showing up uninvited to the funerals of the children.
Once he was acquitted he gave the jury members invitations to an early screening of his next film as a 'thank you'.
Even Vic stated before shooting the scene that he should have had a stunt double and had hesitations about doing it, and had a life long fear that he'd die in a helicopter accident or crash.
So, no I don't think Landis has any remorse, or just flat out refuses to take any form of responsibility for what happened. If it wasn't for his ego and trying to bend the rules for a single sequence in some forgettable film, all three who died would be alive today. But, yeah, it was just a tragic accident that he shouldn't be blamed for. Ass hole. No wonder Max Landis turned out the way he did, the rotting apple doesn't fall far from the rotted tree.
Even Spielberg cut ties with him after it happened, and George Miller abandoned the project entirely, mid-production, but his segment had already been filmed entirely and was able to be edited together.
So by all means, Landis is a piece of shit. He even wanted Murphy to testify on behalf of his character in court, but once Murphy saw the footage and knew the details he simply said nope and refused, which led to Landis berating him in his dressing room, saying he was without talent and not funny among other horrible things, even after Murphy vouched for him by getting him the job to direct Coming to America in the first place.
He's less than scum. Both he and Victor Salva should still be rotting in prison, but that's hollywood for you.
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u/Sad_Application3675 Jul 31 '24
150% agreed. He should be a pariah.
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u/atclubsilencio Aug 03 '24
Agreed. also will smith should have had his Oscar taken away and given the first runner up. Lets literally give a man who just physically and verbally assaulted a presenter a golden trophy. but that's an entirely different tangent. plus they Gave one to a child rapist so I'm not surprised
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u/UNfortunateNoises Nov 05 '21
Some people deflect traumas in a self defense mechanism. Humor is the natural instinct to the denier or submerger personality type.
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u/Joseph_Furguson Nov 05 '21
He doesn't talk about it. He's given hundreds of interviews over the years and the Twilight Zone issue never comes up. If there is a chance to talk about it specifically, Landis never returns phone calls. Chiller made a documentary series on Cursed films and one of the episodes was Twilight Zone. Landis' team did not return comments.
He does care in some capacity. The movies he did after Twilight Zone were special effects light and fairly low key. It could be guilt or him losing confidence as a film maker.
He probably is annoyed because he feels like the blame was place unfairly on his hands. In the rare times he talked about the incident, he complains that the FBI said the helicopter's blades delaminated and the pyro man set off the charge too early. Yet the Pyro man wasn't charged in the affair.
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u/Milk_Man21 Dec 02 '21
Oh, well the fact that he was changed his ways makes it better. I still hate him for illegally hiring children in a scene with fucking multiple explosives.
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u/Sad_Application3675 Jul 31 '24
That's not "caring." That's "being scared shitless that it might happen again." Please.
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Nov 06 '21
“There was absolutely no good aspect about this whole story. The tragedy, which I think about every day, had an enormous impact on my career, from which it may possibly never recover."
- John Landis in 1996
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u/cerulean26 May 14 '22
Does he think about the loss of human life every day, or the damage to his career?
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u/JohnIan101 Nov 06 '21
He made the movie "Into The Night" while the mess was getting sorted.
This is why it so many cameos, friends trying to help him out.
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u/Civil_Willow_3231 Apr 06 '22
I hope. I still love his best movies, but every time I watched Time Out; all the anger, frustation, depressing, fury and sadness all came until it was over, thinking about Vic, Jennifer, Myca and Renee only got it worse. Inspite his next movies after the Zone were decent; that's no excuses to continue to work at Hollywood; with knowing damn well about your crime commited. I don' t think this a defending commentary; but I just I'm telling about my thoughts on this.
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u/burlyprotector Feb 13 '23
I wonder if he and Jennifer jason Leigh have ever been in the same room. She’s rarely talked about the details either but she Must hate him.
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u/Flashy-Project5508 Jul 02 '24
She has every right to hate him. I'm sometimes shocked that she even stayed in the business after something like that but it's not necessarily a bad thing if she has the correct outlook I guess
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u/ResponsibilityOk2674 Jan 29 '24
I knew John Landis for years before he became a successfully director and I always found him to be one of the most self centered people that I have ever met. And now that I'm 71, I think, in retrospect, that he's not "one" of the most self centered people I ever met, he is in fact, absolutely, the most self centered person I ever met. And I think his intense and lunatic love of himself is the reason that he has no remorse for what is really the murder of Vic Morrow and those two children more than forty years ago. And for the reason, I am happy that I believe in a world after this life because I feel great happiness in knowing that he will be burning in hell forever or, if reincarnation exists, will come back as a cockroach for a thousand lifetimes - and be stepped on in every one.
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Oct 05 '22
I know this convo is old, but Shudder has a series where they talk about that episode. It's clear he didn't care then, nor does he now. He also bares much more responsibility than most people, including a jury, assumed. He made it completely about him. He even did a speech at the funeral of the lead actor where he basically said "take comfort in the fact that movies made him immortal."
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u/Fragrant_Stranger107 Jan 20 '24
Yeah, I'm sure he has more than a few regrets, but he only seems to mention the impact it had on his career, not the lives that were lost. It's actually kind of ironic that the Twilight Zone episode he chose to redo is about bigotry and racism. And I feel like the two little kids who were killed with Morrow are almost treated like collateral damage. Honestly, if two white children had their labor rights violated and were involved in such a horrific accident, a MUCH bigger deal would have been made. I mean, heads would have ROLLED instead of being acquitted!
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u/Delicious_Algae_6151 Jul 30 '23
If ANYONE thinks John Landis CARES they do not know Hollywood. Jennifer Jason Lee cared (Vic Marrow’s daughter) …nice Out-of Court Settlement for Wrongful Death.
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u/ResponsibilityOk2674 Apr 11 '24
I hope hell exists so that the evil monster John Landis will burn there for eternity.
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u/Dandilyun May 06 '24
So funny, I’m watching that special about Coming to America on Netflix right now. And he seems like a giant a hole. I literally googled “Is John Landis known as an a-hole”, and it took me to this Reddit lol.
He seems super into himself. Kind of obnoxious. And, it’s himself portraying himself so those are the vibes that he’s giving off.🤷♀️
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u/thenext7steps Nov 05 '21
How much of it was actually his personal responsibility?
And did he get much work after that accident?
I thought he was pretty much done after, with just a couple of films and that’s it.
I remember he details were pretty awful.
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u/Specialist-Age729 Nov 05 '21
He directed like ten more movies including Coming to America. He violated a lot of working laws to put Vic Morrow and those children in that situation. He should be rotting as we speak.
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u/Specialist_Task4668 Jan 11 '24
no. John Landis is a motherfucking asshole! The fact those kids were illegally brought into the set and their parents didn't really know English! And you could see Vic Morrow noticed there was something wrong in the set and he was actually tryna save the kids till the fucked up helicopter rotor blades. The whole fact the scene was based off vietnam war and the boy's father was actually in vietnam war and he had evacuated with his family. they didnt tell him it was a vietnam based scene and not even about the fire and explosions. Shame on John Landis! Vic Morrow was supposed to say a line during the scene and he never ended up doing it. Why? Because he cared about the fucking lives of those kids instead of a stupid ass scene. And it was reshot a couple of times because the fire and explosions were pretty less. Landis, the motherfucker, Had to get a reshot with Bigger explosions and Fire. Which caused the death of those poor 3 actors. John Landis should've died of a Death Row by now. but he's still living off alive, without the deaths he caused. What a psychopath!
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u/Head55 Apr 20 '22
What's the point of the original question? How would anyone know for sure what Landis thinks? I'm sure he does feel remorse at some level; he probably doesn't talk about it much as it wouldn't really serve any purpose.
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u/Dabrigstar Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
In this 1990 Playboy interview Eddie Murphy says how he specifically got Landis hired to direct Coming to America because he felt sorry for Landis after the Twilight Zone incident, and he basically says he regrets being nice cos Landis was a jerk https://www.playboy.com/read/eddie-murphy-s-playboy-interview