MovieChat Forums > National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) Discussion > Had John Belushi not died, would we have...

Had John Belushi not died, would we have gotten a sequel?


Then again, Universal was reluctant to do one even when he was still alive because the American Graffiti sequel from 1979, which had a similar "summer of love" in 1967 plot, didn't do so well at the box office:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_House#Spin-offs

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I doubt it. It would have been very unlikely for the characters to meet up again. I attended college for four years and made lots of friends. I had women that I was more than friends with. It was understood that once graduation happens that everybody is going their own way. We all had varying backgrounds and I believe that had something to do with it. There was not the inner closeness that I believe is necessary although people could be fairly open on occasion. I learned from my roommate sophomore year that he and his siblings had tremendous friction with their father and one took his life. But that revelation never made us close. Most of the people I had contact with had different majors. Some came from well to do families who kept contact to a minimum. I would imagine that the people associated with AH had a similar experience so the first question they would ask is how realistic is it for the characters to cross paths again. Further, how desperate would we look to make such an effort. The Revenge of the Nerds franchise went for broke in short order and the results were terrible in my mind. Had an AH followup not been pondered until the late 80's that would have been on their mind. Now my mother who graduated the same year (1962) as the AH characters got together frequently with her college friends until she died. I attribute that that nearly all had the same major, same social background, and same living arrangements among other factors to create ties. I don't see those kinds of ties with the AH characters. Dorfman definitely had very little in common with his Delta brothers. I had very little in common with my roommates over the four years so no surprise that I never heard from them again. I tried making contact with one several years ago over 30 years after the fact and got no place. I called his parents on Long Island but got voicemail. Maybe they thought it was laughable somebody would bother looking the son up.

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Greg G if you are reading this I hope all is well. I enjoyed our debates even if you thought I was a money grubbing capitalist.

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They went with a TV series instead. Belushi turned down an offer to continue the character.

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