As we predicted yesterday, despite Eli Roth talking up a "Thanksgiving" full length feature, it will probably never happen (or go direct-to-DVD) probably because he's not Robert Rodriguez and, as he told Cinemablend, he and co-writer Jeff Rendell "always wind up talking about girls from high school and going on Facebook and screwing around," rather than getting any work done.
Speaking with AICN, Roth reveals what is much more likely to be his next project, his long gestating sci-fi flick "Endangered Species." First revealed in the spring of 2009, the film is described as being in the vein of "Transformers" or "Cloverfield," saying at the time that the source of the destruction that will rain down upon the Earth, "is not aliens or robots or a virus - it's a little more grounded. But when people hear it they are going to be like 'That is going to be insane!'."
It certainly sounds like his most ambitious -- and priciest -- project to date. As he tells Capone, "['Endangered Species'] is a tricky film; it’s going to be an expensive movie, so any changes I want to make, I want to make them on the page as opposed to shooting and then re-shooting or fixing them in editing. It’s not like I can just shoot and shoot and figure it out later; this thing has to be mapped out very, very carefully."
It definitely sounds like he's taking the right approach, and certainly, to get any kind of studio money, he'd likely have to pitch them a completely realized vision than a brief outline. And while we got some grief yesterday for ragging on Roth, we will say that this project sounds like something that might elevate him from the forgettable B-rate horror he tends to lend his name to.
Obviously, this one is still a way off but you can get your fix this weekend when the Roth-produced horror film "The Last Exorcism" hits theaters.
8/26/2010
Eli Roth Says He Wants To Finish Script For Sci-Fi Pic 'Endangered Species' Next
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5 comments:
Don't worry guys, I don't blame you for ragging on Roth. The only thing he's done that I like was the Bear Jew in IB. I really don't understand the hate for him in that.
I certainly don't hold him to any high regard outside of that one small role, though.
I will stick my neck out and go to bat for Eli Roth. As douchey and over the top a persona he displays, he is a vastly underrated and skilled filmmaker. The dude knows cinema and especially his genre of choice inside and out, probably better than most other horror directors working today. Cabin Fever and even the Hostel movies are quite skillfully made, chock-full of interesting references and cameos and demonstrate a fine balance of suspense, humor and scares. I'd rather he stay behind the camera, than in front of it though.
Cabin Fever was great. Wild and inventive and alive. Unpredictable. Signaled the arrival of a fresh new voice in Eli Roth. Then Hostel arrived. It was good. Not great. Funny in concept. Well executed. Somewhat predictable. Ultimately forgettable. Then Hostel 2. What a misstep. More of the same. In fact, exactly the same. Hostel, again. He complained that nobody went to see it because of illegal downloads. He should have known to take the blame himself. His career is on the same trajectory as M. Knight. Especially so if he continues to lash out at his audience. Thanksgiving was great, though. Whatever happened to his movie that was a series of trailers for non-existant movies?
Well, we agree to disagree on Hostel Part 2 but this is neither the time nor place to discuss why.
I think Hostel 1 did well because it was released in a January wasteland and Hostel 2 was released in June the week after Knocked Up and some animated kid's movie opened. You do the math.
Oh man, I haven't seen Cabin Fever yet, despite being a horror lover. I keep forgetting Roth did that one. I just saw Hostel and that was frankly enough to put me off Eli Roth forever.
I will concede that it executed its premise exceptionally well, for the most part. I went to see it because I was sick of the same ol' "cut away right before the chainsaw connects to a shot of some blood splattering on the wall" technique in horror. I wanted to actually see the event, not just the bloody aftermath.
Well... Roth delivered on that promise admirably. But, after satisfying my curiosity, I decided I didn't really want to see that after all.
Plus, the pacing in Hostel was terrible; as much as I love tits, I thought the endless gratuitous nudity vastly over-stayed it's welcome. I was honestly getting bored with tits! BORED WITH TITS! That's never happened in any other movie ever.
But by the end of the movie I was like "oh god please take me back to the tits! I wanna go back!"
I suppose all that basically means the movie did what it set out to do, and in that light it was successful. But I hate Roth for making it in the first place. It opened a pandora's box, and as a horror fan I couldn't help but look inside.
I still don't understand what's wrong with his performance in IB, though? Is it just that he's ugly or what? He delivered the lines given to him in precisely the way the needed to be delivered, not that they were exceptional in quantity or quality, but he took what was handed to him and made the best of it.
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