But that was far from the only issue.īy that point, National Lampoon’s increasingly spotty track record left it with little leverage when it came to title billing. According to current National Lampoon president Alan Donnes, the studio’s decision followed a falling out among that film’s producers, who included former National Lampoon editor Matty Simmons. Warner Bros., which distributed the original three Vacation films, elected to remote the National Lampoon branding from Vegas Vacation. But by the time a fourth Vacation movie, 1997’s Vegas Vacation, had begun development, the bloom was off the rose. The jump to movies came in 1978 with the massively successful Animal House, and continued through the 1980s largely on the strength of the three Vacation movies: the original (1983), European Vacation (1985), and Christmas Vacation (1989). O’Rourke and Michael O’Donoghue when National Lampoon later expanded to radio and stage shows, it further established itself with contributions from brilliant performers such Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner. The brand boasted a succession of hilarious, subversive writers such as P.J. National Lampoon first appeared in 1970 as a print publication, the offshoot of a revered Harvard University comedy magazine.
#NATIONAL LAMPOON VAN WILDER 2 CAST MOVIE#
Even so, despite having absolutely nothing to do with Vacation, the movie is the most high-profile moment in more than a decade for National Lampoon, a once-revered brand that has been steadily cheapened into near obsolescence. The company that gave birth to the Vacation franchise had no creative input in its reboot. Though it involves intellectual property from the original, the movie was produced independent of any National Lampoon involvement. What’s conspicuously missing, however, is the “National Lampoon” tag.
The reboot, if you want to call it that, is rife with references to its predecessor: Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo appear, “Holiday Road” soundtracks the Griswold family’s latest adventure, and Wally World is once again the destination. One movie they did not make is Vacation, the new movie inspired by 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation. National Lampoon continued to make National Lampoon movies, a distinction that had long ceased to be favorable. That scuttled any potential course change and encouraged the new owners to double down on sophomoric humor for sex-starved frat boys, leading to a string of execrable movies like National Lampoon’s Barely Legal, National Lampoon Presents Cattle Call (which is about porn, not livestock), and the abhorrent, Ryan Reynolds–less Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj. Then Van Wilder was an unexpected cult success, earning nearly $40 million worldwide.
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