b'Cover Story Waiting on theWorldwide Releaseof Thriller 3D, I love musicals, and Landis Takes UsBack to the Bestthats really why I said and then Bonkers of the King of Pop, yes to Michael, because I His Beatle thought, great, I can make Moments, andLoving B.B. King a little musical here.L ets get right to it: whatswanted. He wanted to turn into aDidnt CBS chairman Walter the story on the futuremonster. I didnt really want to doYetnikoff curse you out on the phone distribution of Thriller 3D? Ita rock video, one of those needlefor wanting to make the Thriller had three special screeningsdrop things, because they are onlyvideo?in 2017, and then appearedcommercials to sell records, whichOh my god. Ive never heard in IMAX 3D for one week in 2018didnt really interest me. I realizedanyone use language like that. Ever. accompanying another movie.with Mike being such a big star, at thatHe swore at meunbelievable. He Like everything elseCOVID-19!moment, I said, would he be interestedjust told us to go fuck ourselves. He I am thrilled with the restoration, thein doing a theatrical short? My planhad no interest.3D and the new Atmos mix, and Ivewas basically to take advantage ofHe wanted Michael to go make no idea what will happen with it now.his celebrity and try to bring backanother album.Its gorgeous, all the copies of Thrillerthe theatrical short. Thats why its aRight. They were not interested, are dupes. The versions online are nottwo-reeler. Thats why its fourteenand Mike then volunteered to pay good quality, and for filmmakers likeminutes, like a Three Stooges short.for it himself, and I said absolutely me, thats heartbreaking.And it played theatrically. not, were not going to use your Going back to the beginning, whyThriller was a gift, and that was amoney. George Folsey, who was my did you agree to the initial idea tovanity video. The record company didntpartner, came up with the idea. He direct Thriller when it seemed towant to make it, they had no interest,said, Lets film us filming it. Well be very similar to something youdand people forget that Thriller the albummake The Making of Thriller 45 already done, that being An Americanwas already the bestselling album of allminutes and Thrillers fifteen minutes, Werewolf in London? time, and had been number one for overthat makes an hour, and well have There was no initial idea.a year, and was down to number five oran hour program to sell to cable TV, Michael called me and just askedsix when Michael approached me. Andwhich was brand new. Showtime, if he could turn into a monster. Hewhat I wanted to do was ambitious.which had 100,000 subscribers at the was very enamored of Rick BakersWe budgeted, and it was a half milliontime, gave us a quarter of a million work in Werewolf, fascinated by thedollars. The average they spent ondollars for a seven day window to be metamorphosis, and thats what hevideos then was about $35,000. exclusive to show it. We had offered it to everybody, and thats when MTV went nuts. I got a call from [Bob] Pittman saying, Youve got to come to MTV! and I said, Fuck you! If John Landis: you want it, you can have the second window. When he saw that, at that time, Showtime had only 100,000 subscribers and was on pay cable as opposed to free cable, MTV gave us $250,000 for the two weeks after Showtimes first week.Because it was considered a short film, it didnt go against MTVs policy of not paying for videos.Yes, which is such ugh. Anyway, Still a Thriller Michael was one of the first African American artists played on MTV. MTV seemed to have a corporate policy against playing black acts.Did you really go with Michael to steal the audio masters because Quincy Jones wouldnt let you have them?Yes! One of the reasons people 6MVTMISSUE #1ISSUE #1MVTM7'