No Savage Steve for John Cusack!

Savage Steve Holland has been in the trades a couple of times this week. First, he announced that he was returning to the director's chair for the first time in eighteen years with a follow up to Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer. The film is entitled The Big One 3, and it follows the adventures of a traumatized father trying to give his son the best thirteenth birthday party any kid has ever seen.

A few days later, National Lampoon announced that the popular eighties director would be making their film National Lampoon's Ratko: The Dictator's Son. It's defiantly going to be a busy year for the guy.

Well, that said, Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer were huge cult hits for John Cusack. It only seemed natural that he would return for the official follow up to those films. Savage Steve and John had a great working relationship, and the role of an anxious, goofball father who is trying to compensate for his own horrible childhood would be a great fit for Cusack. Sadly, that is not to be. John Cusack says, "No." To working with Savage Steve Holland on the film.

But he assures us that he is still working on Cosmic Banditos, an adaptation of the A.C. Weisbecker novel that he committed to way back in 2001. I recently talked with Cusack at the junket for 1408. Here is what the actor had to say...

I have a a two part question. Are you still working on Cosmic Banditos? And will you be involved in any capacity whatsoever with Savage Steve Holland's announced follow-up to Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer?

John Cusack: Yes to the first one. No to the second one. We were working on Cosmic Banditos, but then it looks like they are doing the same thing with John from Cincinnati. You send out your script, and then other people come back with a TV show, so you never know. But we still plan on making it. About the Savage Steve Holland thing, I have heard about it. But I know nothing."

You can catch John Cusack in the very scary 1408, which opens in theaters on June 22nd.