Legend John Landis returns to film-making with dream team Ealing Studios collaboration.

John Landis is back in London to shoot his first film in ten years, black comedy Burke and Hare. The director of cult film An American Werewolf in London, Michael Jackson's Thriller video and The Blues Brothers says his love of British film lured him back:

“Working at a revitalised Ealing Studios will be a great honour... Films like Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers have been guiding examples to me over the years, and I hope to honour that mix of darkness and comedy again with Burke and Hare.”

A collaboration between the American director and London's illustrious Ealing Studios is both an inspired pairing and an obvious fit. With the casting of Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher and Tom Wilkison, Burke and Hare is shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated films of the year.

Penned by St Trinian's writers Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft, Burke and Hare is the true story of Britain's earliest serial killers. 19th century grave robbers William Burke and William Hare turn to murder when they run out of easily accessible bodies to sell to medical schools...

Pegg and Serkis will play Burke and Hare respectively, while Wilkinson will play anatomy professor Dr Robert Knox. Confessions of a Shopaholic’s Isla Fisher will play Burke’s girlfriend. Following his appearance in Casino Royal surely there's a cameo for plastination ‘master’ and creator of the Body Worlds exhibition Dr Gunther von Hagens?

It doesn’t look like master of horror Rick Baker will return to work with Landis on his latest release. The make-up artist, who began creating artificial body parts in his kitchen as a teenager, created the Oscar®-winning ground breaking transformations on An American Werewolf and Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Baker has also been back in London however, recently completing work on Universal’s latest release a re-working of The Wolfman; the film that launched a legacy of horror... The Wolfman, which stars Benicio del Toro and Emily Blunt is out in cinemas this week.

Landis, who shot An American Werewolf in London in 1981 at a range of iconic locations in the capital including London Zoo and Piccadilly Circus, might find shooting in the capital quite different this time around:

“Everyone remembers the Piccadilly Circus scene. London was quaintly chaotic as far as filming went - it was basically a case of persuading the local bobby on the beat, and if they said you could do it, you were sort of OK. So I put on a free screening of The Blues Brothers in the Empire Leicester Square and invited 300 members of the Metropolitan police. They loved it - and, whaddaya know, suddenly I had permission to shoot in Piccadilly Circus! I got two February nights, between 1am and 4am and was allowed to stop traffic three times, for two minutes maximum. So we rebuilt the Circus off-site and rehearsed the big crash scene many times and my crew were drilled like a Formula One team, so when it came to the big bus crash we could clear it up and do another take in seconds…”

With the help of Film London, and the Metropolitan Police Service Film Unit (MPSFU) Burke and Hare looks like another cult-classic in the making and one of the most exciting London-shot releases coming soon.