Comics have years to explain this stuff, and in a movie, you have to focus on one thing. So it's about kind of streamlining, I think. Some of the most successful origin films actually have a narrower focus.
I would say 'American Werewolf in London' is like an unconventional buddy movie: even if the buddy dies 20 minutes in, he still remains throughout the picture, and their partnership is one of the best things in the movie.
I think the premise of somebody trying to recreate a night from their teenage years stuck with me as something potentially very tragically comic.
Once people realized that, 'Hey, we're going to be left on Earth here, and everything is going to hell quickly,' sci-fi soon became about our own self-destruction.
The worst thing you can do after a test screening is slash it for the lowest common denominator.
Not everybody fantasizes about robbing a bank, but I think most people have that fantasy of being in a high speed chase.
