Development After the success of ''
National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978, it was decided that another story from the National Lampoon'' magazine should be adapted into a film. One of such stories chosen for development was
John Hughes' "Vacation '58" that was originally published in the September 1979 issue of
National Lampoon. Hughes wrote the screenplay for the first
Vacation film as "a fairly straight adaptation of the short story", with the exception of the ending that was rewritten and reshot after being "thoroughly despised by preview audiences". In addition to Hughes,
Vacation involved the crew of many people connected to
National Lampoon. The film was produced by
Lampoon co-founder and
Animal House producer,
Matty Simmons, and directed by
Lampoon alumnus and
Animal House co-writer
Harold Ramis. Released on July 29, 1983, ''National Lampoon's Vacation
proved to be a financial and critical success. Simmons went on to produce two sequels, with scripts by Hughes. While involved with the early stages of a third sequel, Vegas Vacation'', Simmons resigned from production due to creative differences. As a result, the film was made without the "National Lampoon" title. During an interview on the
TBS series
Dinner and a Movie,
Beverly D'Angelo revealed that due to the success of
Animal House, the original
Vacation was envisioned as a raunchier R-rated comedy targeting young adults. This was principally the reason for nudity such as D'Angelo's shower scene, and Chase's profanity-laced tirades and pool scene with
Christie Brinkley. However, the movie's success with larger family audiences who identified with Chase's everyman-father character caught the filmmakers by surprise. As a result, the subsequent sequels prior to the 2015 R-rated revival were toned down and family friendly, with PG-13 or PG ratings.
Casting Along with
John Belushi, who starred in
Animal House,
Chevy Chase had previously performed in
The National Lampoon Radio Hour and in the stage show
National Lampoon Lemmings, both of which were spin-offs from
National Lampoon magazine. In each of the main films of the series, the Griswold children are portrayed by different actors. This is usually attributed to the fact that after
Anthony Michael Hall declined to reprise his role in
European Vacation in order to star in
Weird Science, director
Amy Heckerling requested both children be recast. Chase has indicated that it was his idea to continue recasting the children by explaining: "I always wanted to make the joke, 'Geez, I hardly ever get the chance to see the kids anymore. I hardly know who they are. We should go on a vacation'. That was funny to me: the idea that Clark was such a great family man, but still didn't even recognize his own children".
Unproduced scripts Shortly after making
European Vacation, Chase and
Eric Idle began to write a script for a follow-up called ''National Lampoon's Australian Vacation''. According to Idle: "We spent some time working together on it. It had some nice shark gags, but I can't pretend it was in any way finished". The concept of
Australian Vacation resurfaced in the 90s as a potential fifth installment of the series, but nothing ever came of it. Prior to the confirmed plans of
New Line Cinema rebooting the series, Chase made note that he has developed another sequel tentatively titled
Swiss Family Griswold. In 2011, Chase revealed that he and
Beverly D'Angelo have been working on the idea: "There's a cruise, there's a fire on the ship, we think the whole ship's on fire and we jump – it's just a little fire – and we end up on an island where we meet Randy somewhere who's been left there from an old
Survivor series". In January 2023,
Beverly D'Angelo revealed that in the 2010s, actor
Michael Rosenbaum had developed a sequel film which involved Clark and Ellen divorcing. They would then be forced to drive to Audrey's wedding in
Arizona together and slowly rekindle their relationship. The film was scrapped in favour of the 2015 reboot, due to market research believing a film with older actors wouldn't be successful. In December 2019, a television spin-off series entitled
The Griswolds entered development. The series is set to be aired on
HBO Max, though it has not been officially picked up, with former Rusty actor
Johnny Galecki serving as executive producer. As of 2023, no recent update has been given on the project. As of March 2023, there has not been updates on the series development. In June 2023,
Dana Barron expressed interest in a new film which focused on Clark and Ellen taking their grandkids on another crazy vacation, while Audrey and Rusty went on their own adult vacation.
Remake turned sequel New Line Cinema (owned by
Warner Bros., which released the previous films) confirmed a new
Vacation film in 2010. The film, titled simply
Vacation, was ultimately released on July 29, 2015, exactly 32 years after the original film was released into theaters. It was produced by
David Dobkin and written by
John Francis Daley and
Jonathan Goldstein. The film is a direct sequel to the previous films (picking up years after the events of
Vegas Vacation), starring
Ed Helms as Rusty Griswold, as he takes his own family to Walley World.
Leslie Mann appeared as Audrey Griswold. Original series stars D'Angelo and Chase appeared in cameo roles. The film also starred
Chris Hemsworth,
Charlie Day and
Christina Applegate. ==Reception==