John Landis came up with the story while he worked in Yugoslavia as a production assistant on the film "Kelly's Heroes" (1970). He and a Yugoslav member of the crew were driving in the back of a car on location when they came across a group of Romani people. The Romani people appeared to be performing rituals on a man being buried so that he would not "rise from the grave." This made Landis realize he would never be able to confront the undead and gave him the idea for a film in which a man would go through the same thing. Landis wrote the first draft of "An American Werewolf in London" in 1969 and shelved it for over a decade. Two years later, Landis wrote, directed, and starred in his debut film, "Schlock" (1973), which developed a cult following. Landis developed box-office status in Hollywood through the successful comedy films "The Kentucky Fried Movie" (1977), "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978), and "The Blues Brothers" (1980) before securing $10 million financing from PolyGram Pictures for his werewolf film. Financiers believed that Landis' script was too frightening to be a comedy and too funny to be a horror film. Universal Studios execs were pressuring the director to cast Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as David Kessler and Jack Goodman but Landis went with unknown actors instead. David Naughton was reportedly cast because Landis had seen him in a television commercial for Dr Pepper. However, Naughton was later let go by Dr Pepper because of his nude scenes in this film. Michael Jackson was so bowled over by this movie, most especially by the the make-up and visual effects, he insisted on hiring the responsible personnel for his planned "Thriller" music video. When Landis agreed to direct (his first music video), he brought on board his foremost "werewolf" crew, including Robert Paynter (cinematography), Elmer Bernstein ("creepy" music), Rick Baker (special make-up effects), and his wife Deborah Nadoolman (costume design). Happy Birthday, John Landis (on the right; Baker on the left and Naughton in the middle)!