Yes, I know he did. Just like he hired him to direct "Black or White." Because of 'Werewolves in London' he called Landis and got the whole Rick Baker team too.
It's well known that they didn't want a third video for Thriller and it was Frank diLeo's idea in the first place and since Michael was so impressed with the werewolf makeup in that movie, he called him. I know Landis wrote up a story idea, but they have both talked about how they worked on the story together-and the dance was definitely figured out by Michael Peters and Michael. ("we had to figure out how to make the zombies dance and not look silly."
Landis has a tendency to make it sound like ALL of "Thriller"-the story, idea of a short film, everything about it was due to him alone-and Michael, let alone Quincy, Michael Peters, his own wife, etc. had any contributions to make at all. You heard him say here "Michael just showed up."
I even heard him tell a story that he sneaked into the studio to get hold of the master tapes to change the song-extend it or something-it was all him.
I'm not one of those that thinks Michael did every single thing with this project at this time. He was definitely in a learning mode-he let Steve Barron go with his original story and added a bit, he did the same with Bob and Beat It and again he was an attentive student with Landis. He knew to hire the best and he learned from the best. He was an attentive student. And he's a great with collaboration-probably comes from working with his brothers.
But he did contribute by then-a lot-. But it's OK-if that's the way Landis wants to remember it and tell it, that's fine.