Max Landis outed as a serial emotional & physical abuser of women

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For years, there have been rumors about screenwriter-director Max Landis. He’s given interviews where he sounds like an emotionally abusive, negging a–hole, and here’s a big shock: he was totally that guy this whole time. For the most part, the rumors were just that. Women who had dated him or worked with him or knew him socially would insinuate that he’s a horrible person, or they would detail what some unnamed man did to them. As we saw with Harvey Weinstein and other predators, there is strength in numbers in the Me Too era. Now eight women have come forward to detail, to the Daily Beast, how Max Landis abused them emotionally and physically. You can and should read the full piece here. Here’s just the start of the piece:

When Ani Baker decided to post her Max Landis warning on social media last week, it was with one word in mind: “protect.” She had been extremely upset to learn that Landis, the screenwriter behind Chronicle and Bright, still had videos of Baker posted in the “highlight” section of his Instagram, despite the fact that she had broken up with him months ago and demanded no contact. Baker figured that new, vulnerable women just entering Landis’ life would quickly find her page.

“If you have found my page via Max Landis, hi,” Baker wrote. “I’m going to give you some direct info I wish I had gotten, because the experience/aftermath of this person is really destructive, and it will be riddled with pain and emotional work that you don’t need to spend your precious energy on.” Baker told The Daily Beast that she quickly received supportive responses, many from other women who had their own Max Landis stories: “Women that I had never heard of who are like, I too was tortured by this person.”

“It gets worse every day,” Baker continued. “Every story I hear, I’m like, how did I think I knew this person? It’s horrifying. But I just feel like I need to be as honest as possible, since my goal in this is to help other people to not be in the same position.”

Baker wasn’t the first person to call Landis out on his “destructive” behavior. Back in 2017, a number of entertainment-industry insiders wrote about Landis on social media—the posts ranged from not-so-subtle subtweets to overt call-outs. In response to a Netflix tweet promoting Bright, an upcoming Landis project, the actress Anna Akana responded, “Written by a psychopath who sexually abused and assaults women, right? Cool.” (Max Landis did not respond to multiple requests for comment through his representative.)

[From The Daily Beast]

Much like Weinstein, women were passing on information to other women in various ways about Landis, but even then, too many women got ensnared. Anna Akana told the Daily Beast that after she went public, ten people had come to her to tell her about their first-hand experiences of Landis’ sexual misconduct. An ex-girlfriend also spoke to the DB anonymously, saying that Landis had raped her repeatedly during their two-year relationship.

Apparently, Landis has a “carefully curated” group of about 100 friends whom he calls the Colour Society, and many of them are creative industry types. That’s how he lures young women in – he offers them access to cool, creative people and friendships, and what he’s really doing is tying a woman to his circle of friends so it will be easier for him to hunt her. Some of the Daily Beast’s sources suggest that the atmosphere around the Colour Society is very cult-like, and Landis is the persistent and yet weirdly “charismatic” cult leader. The descriptions of how he pursued women and then how he treated them when they were dating… my God. What a disgusting monster he is.

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Photos courtesy of WENN.

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39 Responses to “Max Landis outed as a serial emotional & physical abuser of women”

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  1. Gabriella says:

    Direct result of Helicopter parenting.

    ETA- google John Landis (this creep’s dad) and Helicopter. Not caring about other people seems to be a family trait.

    • Elkie says:

      Ouch. If only Max had been a child actor instead of an adult abuser.

    • Becks1 says:

      What? Am I missing something?

      • Cheri says:

        John Landis is his father; he definitely had a privileged upbringing. Implication is that his privilege warped him?

      • joe dokes says:

        Max Landis’ father, John, shot a Twilight Zone Movie back in the day. There was a massive screw-up during a helicopter scene that killed three people.

      • Harpersghost says:

        Look up Twilight Zone helicopter deaths.

        Twilight Zone was directed by John Landis, his father, and he violated child labor laws and safety precautions and pushed so hard that a helicopter crashed, killing two kids and an actor (Jennifer Jason Leigh’s dad.)

      • Mumbles says:

        There have been rumors going around for years that the set of that Twilight Zone movie was a hellhole of abuse and exploitation involving some of the kids, and Vic Morrow was going to alert the authorities. Then he and two of the kids die in an unusual accident.

    • gw says:

      Max doesn’t see women as actual human beings so something must have happened in his relationship with his mother too (besides his asshole father).

      • SM says:

        No. Just no. Watching his father treat women like shit could have easily been the cause of problems. Women aren’t always to blame for the way men act.

    • isabelle says:

      Wouldn’t it more of a privileged upbringing than Helicopter parenting? Highly doubt someone as wealthy as Landis or as famous would be parenting 24/7 and hovering over him constantly.

      • Trillion says:

        This is a reference to his father’s infamous helicopter incident (multiple deaths) when filming the Twilight Zone movie.

    • North of Boston says:

      When I saw the headline, I wondered if he was related to JL. Ugh, it is not surprising that he is.

  2. Erinn says:

    I used to watch SourceFed when it was around on youtube. One of the personalities (Whitney Moore) from that had been abused by him (they dated) as well and she’s come out and spoken about it in interviews recently. Gaslighting, and fear prevented these women from coming forward sooner, and I’m so proud that they did manage to.

    Also, this guy seems to be described most commonly as the screenwriter of “Bright”. That looked like the LAMEST pile of crap hahaha. I watched the netflix preview ages ago and laughed through it because it was just SO over the top predictable. The message could have been great – but it just seemed SO heavy handed and … bad. Maybe it turned out to be a good movie? But man, I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it.

  3. SM says:

    By the end of this story, I still have no idea who he is. Other than being a horrible person

    • gw says:

      The son of John Landis. Love that joke on the show Difficult People: “What do you think John Landis’ worst contribution to society is? His alleged manslaughter or his son, Max?”

  4. msn says:

    That Daily Beast piece was the toughest read yesterday, had to force myself to complete it because WHEW WHAT A POS TOXIC MONSTROSITY MAX LANDIS IS.

    Yet another traumatic account of how abuse works and it’s the specificity that floored me…my gawd the women he destroyed :/
    Prosecute and throw away the key.

  5. teehee says:

    I’m sorry but Ive seen exactly those psychopath eyes on a guy who wrote to me and asked if he could pay me money to let him beat me to a pulp. Exactly THAT look in his eyes, like this guy.
    I’ll never forget it and i can spot it miles away.

  6. suzysunshine says:

    True story. I was hired as a Summer nanny for the Landis family when I was in high school. Max was just a baby. I was one of two nannies. Spent the entire Summer with them. I saw John Landis his Dad exhibit rude, misogynistic and obnoxious behavior on several occasions. Apple meet tree. Not surprised.

    • Harryg says:

      Wow. Horrible. Write a book about that! Just change the names a bit.

    • gw says:

      Well, we now know where Max picked up his behavior from.

    • Jamie says:

      I read an old profile of him yesterday where he talked about having to leave Beverly Hills HS after his freshman year to go to a school for emotionally disturbed kids. This guy has been a documented psycho for a while.

      (I wish I could find that article again; someone just liked to it on Twitter yesterday. )

    • isabelle says:

      Yikes!! Privileged people parenting is just a higher form of neglect.

    • Carol says:

      Ahhhh. That might explain why his son is such an a-hole. That’s too bad because I’ve been such a fan of John Landis’ films forever. Well maybe the Legacy for both Landis will not be their films but instead their misogynistic, callous, shameful, disrespectful behavior.

  7. Loretta says:

    I’m sick after reading the article. Poor women, Landis is a monster.

  8. Valiantly Varnished says:

    His father is a douche as well so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. When your parent avoids accountability in his own life it’s pretty tough for him to teach it to you.

  9. Easternflower says:

    Isn’t he racist too? I remember his name in the Ghost in the Shell debacle

  10. Pulplove says:

    I had heard of his hideous behaviour before and I was already disgusted, but The Daily Beast article made me realise the magnitude of his abuse. His emotional abuse alone is so vile, I needed to take breaks from reading a few times.
    He. Is. A. Monster!

    Karma is hopefully coming for him and his talentless a$$.

  11. minx says:

    He’s homely and goofy looking so I’m getting schadenfreude from that.

  12. Marty says:

    This doesn’t surprise me, unfortunately. It was clear from his interviews he was an misogynistic prick. And when men don’t see women deserving of being treated like human beings, abuse is an easy escalation.

  13. Kathy Benjamin says:

    I was part of a web community for a long time, and this prick showed up about 10 years ago. (It was verified by the mods; it wasn’t some random guy claiming to be him.) He’s still infamous there because of how he acted. He stuck around for a year and was just the most disgusting person. I absolutely believe these women.

  14. Laura says:

    I’ve watched a few interviews with him on Youtube and can unfortunately see how people could see him as charismatic. I’m a survivor of domestic abuse and also have a pretty good assh0le-radar so I felt the need to steer clear of him and his work for years. This absolutely makes me actively protest his projects as loudly as possible.

    F this guy and F anyone who gives him work/money.

  15. Aemilia Tertia says:

    Here’s another hate-read, an “interview” he did back in 2013, which he later disavowed by saying he was drunk. It’s all on display here, he’s been this way forever.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20130930221530/http://shelbysells.com/2013/09/30/interview-series-max-landis/

  16. Lisabella says:

    Like father like son and friend Harvey too…

  17. Rise above says:

    I just can’t get past his ears

    • CuriousCole says:

      You’re not alone in that! Who would’ve thought those ears are actually the least offensive thing about him?