Lilith (Cate Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy. Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B. Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits – Roland (Kevin Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector; Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Jack Black), a wiseass robot. Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.
2013’s ‘The Green Inferno.’ Photo: Open Road Films.
A group of student activists travel from New York City to the Amazon to save the rainforest. However, once they arrive in this vast green landscape, they soon discover that they are not alone… and that no good deed goes unpunished.
Jack Black in ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.
When ten-year-old Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) is suddenly orphaned, he is sent to live with his Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in a creaky (and creepy) old mansion with a mysterious ticking noise that emanates from the walls. Upon discovering that his uncle is a warlock, Lewis begins learning magic, but when he rebelliously resurrects an evil warlock he must find the secret of the house and save the world from destruction.
(L to R) Lorenza Izzo, Keanu Reeves and Ana de Armas in ‘Knock Knock.’ Photo: Lionsgate.
When a devoted husband and father (Keanu Reeves) is left home alone for the weekend, two stranded young women (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a kind gesture results in a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
A group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals.
Amanda Barker “Lizzie”in Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.
Opening in theaters on August 9th is the new action-comedy ‘Borderlands’, which is based on the popular video game of the same name and was written and directed by Eli Roth (‘Thanksgiving’).
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with writer and director Eli Roth about his work on ‘Borderlands,’ the challenges of adapting a video game, cracking the story, the all-star cast, and making movies outside of the horror genre.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the challenges of adapting a video game and cracking the story for ‘Borderlands’?
Eli Roth: Well, the story, that was producer Ari Arad and Randy Pitchford, who spent a long time with different writers trying different permutations until they settled on this story, and then that’s when they came to me. So, one of the things we talked about was how do we change stuff and adapt it from a video game to a movie, but I had the game creator Randy with me there the whole time. There are certain things that you obviously want to be faithful to, like the costumes, the design, the guns, the tech. There are certain things that are beloved in the game, and we could fill the movie with Easter eggs, but obviously in casting the movie, you’re going to cast people in real life that look different than the characters in the game. So that’s the first thing. It’s a very, very violent game, but to render the universe at this scale, the studio wants to make a PG-13 movie, and I wanted to make something for the nine-year-old boy in me that if this is a movie, if you’ve never played the game before and you take kids to go see at 10 or 11-years old, they’re going to laugh their ass off and have a great time. I wanted something that was just totally bonkers, a movie that was unhinged and fun. You can just turn off your brain, grab a bucket of popcorn and have a good time.
Moviefone: Did you play the game for research, and what did you like most about the source material?
ER: It’s so fun. Yes, I did play the game. I’m terrible at games, so I had to have Christy Pitchford take me through the game co-playing with her. But I love it. I love the sense of humor. Randy Pitchford and I are of the same age and have the same influences, whether it was ‘Mad Max’ or ‘Escape from New York’ or ‘Star Wars’. I love the creatures. I love the sense of insanity. I love the world. I love the detritus of the world. They’re trying to make something beautiful out of it and the trashed planet, and it made me think of ‘The Fifth Element’ and what I saw in that movie, and just the colors of that film and the Gaultier costumes that just blew my mind. So, to get to render something at that scale, I want it to feel like you took all your fluorescent pink neon clothes, put them in the dryer, sprinkled in some glitter, and then it just exploded everywhere and caught fire at the same time. So that was the idea of rendering something that didn’t look like any other movie you had seen before.
MF: Can you talk about putting together this terrific cast of actors?
ER: I had an amazing experience working with Cate and Jack on ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’, the kid’s movie I did with Amblin, and Cate was the first one I called. I said, “I’m making this insane kind of spaghetti western space opera, fun sci-fi video game adaptation, and I need someone to be a total badass, like Clint Eastwood in ‘The Man with No Name’ or Snake Plissken in ‘Escape from New York’,” and she’s like, “I’m in. Let’s do it.” So, Cate learned to twirl guns. She wanted to shoot, she wanted to do her own stunts. We put her in a harness, she was 100 feet in the air on wires. Then I said, “All right, what if you grab a flamethrower and you light these guys on fire?” So, Cate, she learned to do it. She’s really shooting a flamethrower in that scene. So, it was incredible. Once you have Cate, she’s actor bait. Everybody wants to act with Cate. So, I called Jack right away, said, “She’s going to be a pissed off bounty hunter, and you’re the annoying robot,” and he’s a big ‘Borderlands’ player, so he knew Claptrap, he was all in. Then Jamie Lee said she wanted to play Tannis, which was my first choice and she said yes. he’s like, “You had me at Cate Blanchett.” So, it’s great to be able to unite those screen icons in a movie, and the two of them became close friends. Everyone bonded on this movie. We were shooting in the pandemic, so there was a curfew in Budapest. We weren’t allowed out after 8:00pm, and the world of ‘Borderlands’ became our reality. So, everybody got close. We made lifelong friends on that movie, and you can feel that bond with the characters on screen.
MF: Finally, you are probably best known for making horror movies. But do you also enjoy working in other genres?
ER: I do. I love it. I’ve noticed, if I do too many horror films in a row, I start to get burnout. So, whether I switch and made my documentary ‘Fin’ about saving sharks or ‘Death Wish’, which is completely different, it’s good for me to switch it up and challenge myself creatively and learn new skills. You learn something every time, every day on set. Every shot, you’re learning something new. So, it’s great. I shot ‘Thanksgiving’ after ‘Borderlands’, so I learned how long the post-production is on ‘Borderlands’. So, it’s good for me to go back and forth, but obviously horror movies are my passion and my love. But if you do too many in a row… I never want to get tired of doing it.
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What is the plot of ‘Borderlands’?
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by interstellar business mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to find his missing daughter and the soldier-for-hire, Roland (Kevin Hart), who was sent to rescue her. The mission takes Lilith back to her ruined home planet, Pandora, where she reluctantly teams with Roland, a muscleman named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a loopy scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a wisecracking robot (Jack Black), and the girl herself, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), to battle monsters and vicious marauders while searching for a secret that could unleash unimaginable power.
A loud, clattering, off-brand mash-up of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ and other recent tentpoles, ‘Borderlands’ is based on the hugely successful first-person shooter video game franchise launched in 2009 by Gearbox Software. Fans of the game can assess how faithful the movie, mostly directed by horror auteur Eli Roth (‘Thanksgiving’), is to the game, but as a film this fails on a number of levels.
‘Borderlands’ is simply dull, thanks to a bland script and setting, cheap-looking production values, and a cast that seems terrific on paper but veers between performances that are either bored or overwrought. Filmed more than three years ago in the spring and summer of 2021, ‘Borderlands’ collected dust until Tim Miller (‘Deadpool’) came on to direct reshoots in early 2023 when Roth proved unavailable. Either way, with recent video game adaptations like ‘Fallout’ and ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ earning praise for their approach to translating their games to the screen, ‘Borderlands’ is a disappointing throwback, a film that looks and plays like it came out of the 1990s, right down to the crappy CG and the pounding heavy metal needle drops.
As Cate Blanchett’s expository voice-over tells us at the beginning, a long-extinct alien race named the Eridians used to rule the galaxy, leaving behind some powerful artifacts hidden in secret “Vaults” throughout the cosmos that ruthless corporations like Atlas and Dahl, along with independent “Vault Hunters,” are interested in obtaining. Blanchett herself plays Lilith, a bounty hunter who is hired by Atlas himself (Edgar Ramirez) to ostensibly find his kidnapped daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). She’s gone missing on the planet Pandora (yes, same name as the planet in the ‘Avatar’ movies) along with the soldier sent to retrieve her, Roland (Kevin Hart).
Pandora also happens to be Lilith’s home world, and when she arrives there she finds it to be devastated by corporate mining and colonization efforts, with gangs of former prison laborers known as Psychos now roaming the land. She also finds Tina in short order, along with Roland, but the girl does not want to be rescued and shows her resistance by hurling explosive stuffed bunnies in Lilith’s direction. Nevertheless, Lilith, Tina, and Roland eventually team up – along with Tina’s self-styled bodyguard and former Psycho Krieg (Florian Munteanu), an eccentric scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a motormouth robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) – to block Atlas’s real agenda, which is to find a Vault hidden on Pandora and unlock the unimaginable power stored within.
The problem with ‘Borderlands,’ as with many video game adaptations, is that the movie must do a lot of world-building in a short period of time, leading to things like that voice-over narration and reams of expository dialogue. ‘Borderlands’ falls victim to this early on, mixing and matching characters from various editions of the game in a stop-and-start narrative that either comes to a crashing halt to explain its convoluted mythology or races from one frenetic action scene to another without balancing the two effectively. This leaves no room for any real character development, and while a pro like Blanchett tries hard, the cast falls into the ‘lovable band of rogues and misfits’ trope without doing anything to make it unique.
The movie is also hampered by its production values, which look cheap, constricted, and derivative despite a reported $120 million budget. Set on a world devastated by indifferent corporate colonizing, the movie looks like it was shot in perhaps two quarries made to look like junkyards (one character even asks at one point if there’s a way to escape that doesn’t involve schlepping through garbage). The post-apocalyptic wasteland has been done to death, and the fact that the Psychos resemble extras from the recent ‘Mad Max’ movies doesn’t help.
If Roth (or Miller) isn’t shooting in one of the film’s two junkyards, then they’re staging sequences in murky underground corridors and hallways that cinematographer Rogier Stoffers can’t solve. The result is an especially drab film all around. Adding to the problems, ‘Borderlands’ is rated PG-13, so Roth isn’t able to indulge his proclivities for copious amounts of blood and gore; the choppy editing suggests that much of this is being held back for a future ‘uncut’ release.
A finale laden with mediocre CGI only exacerbates the sense that this is a production where things went south pretty quickly, and the movie rapidly descends into a kind of numbing, generic rhythm that is thankfully only ameliorated by its relatively brief 100-minute runtime.
We’re not exactly sure how Cate Blanchett got roped into this, although she and Jack Black both starred in Roth’s slapdash 2018 Y/A fantasy, ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls.’ Whatever her reasons, we’re not going to place this among the Australian actor’s finest performances. She’s good, never less than professional, but at times she doesn’t seem to know how seriously she should be taking any of it, and her CG-infused arc near the end of the film just ends up looking silly.
Jack Black has no such problems: for one thing, he’s never onscreen since he’s the voice of the R2-D2/BB-8 hybrid robot known as Claptrap, and as such gets the film’s best and funniest lines. Claptrap acts as a commentator on the action, edging close to a ‘Deadpool’-like breaking of the fourth wall (although it never happens) and offering up a stream of patter that alternates between sarcastic quips and ill-time bursts of into. But even Black’s energetic routine gets wearisome after 100 minutes or so of listening to Claptrap babble on.
We’re not sure what Jamie Lee Curtis is doing as the usually reliable actor plays Tannis as a weird combination of loopy and wearily cynical, with the two sides of her admittedly thin personality never meshing well. Kevin Hart is curiously low-energy, although he does pull off a few decent action moves, and while we dislike giving the thumbs-down to a young actor, Ariana Greenblatt (‘Barbie’) delivers an incredibly annoying, tic-laden performance as Tiny Tina, a character so poorly developed and inconsistently written that her central role in the story makes her faulty work even more grating.
We should have known we were in trouble the minute we saw Avi Arad listed as a producer on ‘Borderlands.’ While Arad was instrumental in the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he was long gone by the time it became a cultural phenomenon. He’s instead continued to plunder his stake in the Sony Spider-Man Universe with lackluster misfires like the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ and ‘Venom’ films, along with 2002’s equally forgettable adaptation of the ‘Uncharted’ video game.
‘Borderlands’ fits neatly into that filmography as a generic, soulless sci-fi actioner that really lacks any sort of distinctive personality or creative spark (a quick online search reveals that fans of the game are also disgruntled with what they’ve seen of the movie via trailers and clips). And while Eli Roth is no one’s idea of a great filmmaker, he’s out of his element here and unable to deploy the deliberately sleazy horror/exploitation tropes that at least make films like ‘Hostel’ and ‘The Green Inferno’ identifiable as his. ‘Borderlands’ is simply product, manufactured to cash in on a successful property without any understanding of what makes that property popular or why it should appeal to non-gamers.
‘Borderlands’ receives 2.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘Borderlands’?
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by interstellar business mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to find his missing daughter and the soldier-for-hire, Roland (Kevin Hart), who was sent to rescue her. The mission takes Lilith back to her ruined home planet, Pandora, where she reluctantly teams with Roland, a muscleman named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a loopy scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a wisecracking robot (Jack Black), and the girl herself, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), to battle monsters and vicious marauders while searching for a secret that could unleash unimaginable power.
Paul Giamatti has agreed to star in a ‘Hostel’ TV series.
‘Hostel’ director Eli Roth is involved in the new show.
The show will update the horror concept.
Back in the mid-2000s, Eli Roth’s ‘Hostel’ horror movies were a big part of the “torture porn” horror movie wave that also included the ‘Saw’ franchise.
While the ‘Saw’ movies are sticking with the big screen, it appears ‘Hostel’ –– which last showed up on home entertainment –– is packing its bags and heading for TV.
With Roth back to co-write, produce and direct episodes of the show, the ‘Hostel’ series will feature ‘The Holdovers’ Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti in a key (but unknown) role.
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What’s the story of the ‘Hostel’ movies?
Jay Hernandez’s 2005’s ‘Hostel’. Photo: Lions Gate Films.
Originally released in 2005, written and directed by Roth, the first ‘Hostel’ follows a group of American tourists as they end up in Slovakia where they are eventually taken one-by-one by an organization that allows people to torture and kill others. It earned $82 million at the box office.
In the second movie, again directed by Roth and released in 2007, three American female art students in Rome are directed to a Slovak village where they are eventually kidnapped and taken to a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill people. That film added $36 million to the franchise’s coffers.
Finally, Roth handed the reins of the franchise over to Scott Spiegel, who directed the straight-to-DVD follow-up ‘Hostel: Part III’, released in 2011, following four men attending a bachelor party in Las Vegas. While there, they are enticed by two prostitutes to join them at a private party way off the Strip. Once there, they are horrified to find themselves the subjects of a perverse game of torture, where members of the Elite Hunting Club are hosting the most sadistic show in town.
The new series, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is apparently going to be a modern adaptation of the movie’s concept and its reinvention as an elevated thriller.
Paul Giamatti on his Eli Roth Connection
Paul Giamatti stars in ‘The Holdovers.’
This marks the first time that Roth and Giamatti have worked directly together, but it sprang from their first meeting years ago.
“Eli was shooting ‘Hostel’ in Prague, and I was shooting ‘The Illusionist’ and I met him. We talked about me actually killing somebody in that movie, but it never panned out.”
Director/Producer Eli Roth speaks at the Los Angeles Fan Screening for Tristar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s ‘Thanksgiving’ at Vista Theatre on November 14, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Stewart Cook/Getty Images for Sony Pictures.
While there is no other casting to report yet, the ‘Hostel’ series will see Roth reuniting with movie producers Chris Briggs and Mike Fleiss, with Briggs also co-writing the first script for the series.
When will the ‘Hostel’ series be on screens?
While the show has the backing of Fifth Season, the company that produces ‘Severance’ for Apple, ‘Hostel’ has yet to find a home on the small screen yet, since it’s still at the development stage. So we’ll have to wait and see if it makes a deal before a launch date is specified.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Eli Roth about ‘Thanksgiving,’ developing the feature film after making the trailer for ‘Grindhouse,’ shooting the Black Friday sequence, working with Patrick Dempsey, and the status of the recently announced sequel.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Director/Producer Eli Roth speaks at the Los Angeles Fan Screening for Tristar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s ‘Thanksgiving’ at Vista Theatre on November 14, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Stewart Cook/Getty Images for Sony Pictures.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about developing the ‘Thanksgiving’ trailer from ‘Grindhouse’ into a feature film and when did you know that you had the right story and screenplay for the feature length version?
Eli Roth: It’s interesting. The development process started when I was 11 or 12 years old with my best friend, Jeff Rendell, growing up in Massachusetts, waiting for a Thanksgiving slasher film every November. We’d be like, “When are they doing Thanksgiving?” So, we had all these kills like, “Oh, you could cut off a turkey’s head at the parade and they’d run around like a turkey with their head cut off.” That kind of stuff. So, by the time Quentin (Tarantino) and Robert Rodriguez asked me if I wanted to do a trailer for ‘Grindhouse,’ I was like, “I’ve already got it. It’s ‘Thanksgiving.’” Then after that, we thought, “This is great. I don’t have to make movies anymore. I can just make fake trailers because you’re just shooting the best parts.” That’s the stuff you want to do anyways. Then, fans were kind of badgering me over the years and I thought, “Man, they’re right. I really want to do this.” But we didn’t have it. We didn’t know what it was about other than those kills. So, we went through a few different kind of story permutations, and then it was seeing those riots on YouTube, the Black Friday riots where you just saw people saying, “Oh, we’re so thankful,” and two hours later killing each other for electronics and waffle irons. We thought there was something there that was interesting. It’s the mix of being thankful, “I’m just happy for just having my health and my family,” and then killing someone for stuff at a store. But then there’s something darker underneath which is that the reason everyone must do these gladiator games is because a few people at the top are making all the money and everyone else is getting minimum wage. So, I was like it isn’t just blaming greed. It’s like why are people forced into this, and it’s because no one’s getting paid anything, and a few people are hoarding it all. So, I thought that’s where you have interesting material there to do a good slasher film.
(L to R) Gabriel Davenport, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, and Addison Rae star in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
MF: Can you talk about creating the Black Friday opening sequence? What were the biggest challenges in shooting that scene and how many days did it take?
ER: We shot it in four days, and this is a low budget movie that we shot in 30 days. So, shooting that sequence, I wrote myself into a corner. But I’m like, “Well, I’m the producer.” So I go, “I can do it in four nights, two nights outside, two nights inside.” Then you’re talking with your stunt team and the special effects guys and makeup effects going, “How the hell are we going to pull this off?” I had a terrific second unit director named Justin Harding, who uses this program called Frame Forge, where we can kind of build the environments virtually and figure it out with my DP, Milan (Chadima). We shot list it, we storyboard, we go to the locations, and we walk through. It’s just the prep, and I’ve been directing for 20 years now. So, there’s a certain level of mastery that comes with that that you can only get from that 10,000 hour on set. So, I know exactly what I want. I mean, for me, where I think that those scenes go awry is when you try to do too much. I wanted to keep it intimate in a way where you’re following the characters and following what they’re all going through as this tsunami is happening. We had a great stunt team, and the extras were fantastic. We’d make sure that we did everything live. So, it is a faith-based system that you just hope to God it works out. We had a couple of cameras for some of the shots and for two nights all night the people were rioting and you’d say like, “Look, everyone, look to your left. Look to your right. These are your scene partners. Is everyone okay before, after? What are you comfortable with? Is it okay if I bump you?” Everyone was good at working together and working with Dan Skene, our stunt coordinator. As soon as you yelled cut, everyone was smiling, picking each other up. Because we had to do it again and again. It was a weird bonding experience. Everyone had smiles on their face the whole time. It was quite fun.
MF: Patrick Dempsey gives a performance in ‘Thanksgiving’ that is unlike anything we’ve seen from him before. Can you talk about working with him on this specific character and helping him create this performance?
ER: I think that Patrick, look, he’s very sexy and good-looking. I mean, he’s like Paul Newman or Clint Eastwood. He’s going to have this kind of almost third act his career, because I grew up with him in high school from the teen movies. Then everyone else, my wife loves him from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and rom-coms. But now you see his performance in ‘Ferrari.’ You see him in ‘Thanksgiving.’ You realize he’s a seasoned actor, a great actor and such a fine actor. I think now that the restraints are off and he can do R-rated stuff, he’s got this whole other range to him. He’s fantastic. So, we talked about his accent. He grew up in Maine and he had never used his natural accent before. He had to lose it when he went to New York City to become an actor. So, in the movie, he’s talking with the accent he grew up with. Once you start talking in that accent, you kind of revert to being from that small town in Maine. I think giving him the permission to do that and to talk with his natural accent, it was great. He’s an amazing actor.
A mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
MF: Finally, can you talk about where you are in the development process on the upcoming sequel, and will it feature returning characters or a completely new story?
ER: Well, it’s early on. Jeff Rendell and I are going through the process of we’ve kind of just got off the rides. We’re clearing our heads a little bit. I’m watching, I’m catching up on ‘Beef’ and ‘Saltburn.’ I’m watching non-horror stuff, like rom-coms. I watched ‘Bend It Like Beckham.’ That’s my new favorite film. So, I’ve just been kind of decompressing a little bit. It sort of clears my head. But I think that with the sequel, you want to go back for what made the first one work and what people enjoyed. I just sort of go where I think the horror is going to be. I go, “Oh, that’s an interesting idea.” I present myself in the shoes of the fan and think, “I just paid money and went to a theater and saw this. You better impress me.” Then you go, “Whoa, I didn’t expect that.” I have an opening sequence that I think is going to be the right opening sequence for it, that people go, “Oh, okay. This is going to be good.” That’s what I had to do with the Black Friday scene. I had to set the table, so to speak, saying, “We’re not playing around. This is going to be an insane movie. It’s not what you expect.” I need to have a similar opening and I’ve got one. I have the opening and I have the finale, and I’m looking for ways to kind of connect it, so you just sit and you watch the movie. Every day you press play and it’s like choose your own adventure book until it’s like, “Oh, you died. Go back. Go this way, go that way.” So, we’re at that point in the process of just kind of finding the best story, but I got a few kills, so I’m trying to connect the dots.
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What is the plot of ‘Thanksgiving’?
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.
Director Eli Roth’s ‘Thanksgiving’ opens in theaters on November 17, 2023. Photo: Sony Pictures.
Preview:
Eli Roth will make a sequel to his holiday-themed slasher movie ‘Thanksgiving’
He says he’ll take his time with the script to get it right.
The movie should be in theaters by late 2025.
It took 16 years for co-writer/director Eli Roth to finally realize his dream of making the full movie that his trailer for ‘Thanksgiving’ –– released as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ ‘Grindhouse‘ –– teased, but it appears we’ll be getting a second helping a lot quicker. Because, after all… aren’t second helpings all part of the fun of Thanksgiving?
So, while the first film’s tagline read, “there will be no leftovers”, it looks like we’re all in for more Pilgrim-masked mayhem, as Roth has announced that ‘Thanksgiving’ sequel is in the early planning stages.
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What was the story of ‘Thanksgiving’?
A mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts –– the birthplace of the holiday.
Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.
Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays… Or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?
Who else appeared in the first ‘Thanksgiving’?
(L to R) Gabriel Davenport, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, and Addison Rae star in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
The filmmaker revealed that he and Jeff Rendell –– who wrote the ‘Thanksgiving’ script based on a story that Roth and he cooked up –– will be taking some time to make sure that the script is right before he starts shooting the new movie.
He also explained how excited he is to have a slasher horror franchise (Roth has previously had a franchise, albeit more in the torture horror genre via the ‘Hostel’ movies).
What will happen in ‘Thanksgiving 2’?
Amanda Barker “Lizzie”in Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
While we won’t specify what happens at the end of the first film, it does open up some intriguing possibilities given what we learned about the reasons for the seasonal slaying/kidnapping.
And if the likes of ‘Scream’, ‘Halloween’ and other horror franchises can keep its killer coming back in different ways, then surely Roth will have some fun ideas up his sleeve. And you know he’s already rubbing his hands in anticipation of new kills.
When will ‘Thanksgiving 2’ be on screens?
Sony has yet to confirm an official date for the ‘Thanksgiving’ sequel, but Roth says the aim is to have it in theaters in 2025, most likely in November.
Cheerleader on the trampoline in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
A mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
This new holiday-themed thriller is actually the realization of dream he’s held for around 16 years, ever since he shot a real trailer for a fake movie that formed part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ ‘Grindhouse’.
Though the finished product only nods to the concept from the trailer (and includes one of the kills it features), ‘Thanksgiving’ certainly offers some crafty gore and moments played for laughs.
Does ‘Thanksgiving’ Serve Up the Goods?
‘Thanksgiving’ Parade from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
Eli Roth has long promised that he’ll finally make good –– or should that be “make bad”, given that the movie features people being stalked and butchered in all manner of creative ways –– on the promise of the ‘Thanksgiving’ trailer he cooked up for old filmmaker friends Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ cult movie celebration ‘Grindhouse’ back in 2007.
That conglomeration of weird ideas and crazed action didn’t hit home with cinemagoers, but Roth (also responsible for movies such as the ‘Hostel’ films and ‘Cabin Fever’) hasn’t been able to let go of the idea. And purely from a slasher movie fan front, that’s a good thing.
‘Thanksgiving’, which looks to start balancing out the vast gap in the number of horror movies set during the titular holiday compared to, Christmas and especially Halloween (Arbor Day may still want a word on that front), has him stalking around slasher territory.
As you might expect from an Eli Roth movie, gore hounds will be happy enough with what he’s got on offer here. The best moments feature items such as a dumpster being used to off someone in ingenious fashion and corn cob holders employed the way they were never intended.
‘Thanksgiving’ certainly offers enough to keep you satisfied, even if it’s mostly junk food.
‘Thanksgiving’: Script and Direction
Director Eli Roth’s ‘Thanksgiving’ opens in theaters on November 17, 2023. Photo: Sony Pictures.
Writing with longtime collaborator Jeff Rendell (who actually worked on the ‘Grindhouse’ trailer and even appears as the killer in that short), Roth has come up with a screenplay that goes all in on the horror tropes while letting you know he knows you know.
There are elements borrowed from other, better movies (specifically the likes of ‘Halloween’ and ‘Scream’) but they’re all whisked together in such a way that they still have some flavor.
The characters won’t exactly linger in the mind –– they’re mostly a stock collection of mean girls, meat heads and greedy grownups –– but that’s not really the point. They’re in place so Roth and Rendell can start taking them out in bloody fashion. You’ll probably figure out what’s going on a fair bit before the characters do (though there is a fake-out that seems to stretch credibility in terms of the villain being somewhere they probably shouldn’t be without relying on accomplices) and it all comes down to the usual dumb decisions and a chase through an abandoned building, but by that point, you’ll feel appropriately satisfied.
Roth certainly knows how to make a set piece work and keep tension simmering without constantly resorting to easy jump scares (though when they are served up, they’re effective). He’s got a keen eye for keeping his characters (and therefore the audience) off guard and knows how to orchestrate a killer sequence.
And while there is always a danger that the comedy aspects of a movie such as this –– and ‘Thanksgiving’ is definitely intended to balance the laughs with the screams –– can overwhelm the horror side of things. Fortunately, the blend here works, the two sides of the story complementing each other.
(L to R) Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae and Tomaso Sanelli star in ‘Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
The brunt of the character work here is handed to Jessica Wright (played by Nell Verlaque) who would seem at first glance to be the sort of spoiled highschooler that is offed in a hundred different variants of a movie like this. In Roth’s hands, she’s a little more nuanced than that, and Verlaque breathes enough life into her to make you actually root for her at times.
She’s the daughter of Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman), the wealthy owner of the local megamart whose store is the location for the Black Friday riot that leads to multiple deaths and injuries and sparks the vengeful crusade a year later that gives the movie its hook (and knife, and fork and…). Jessica is haunted by the death of her mother, and unhappy with her stepmother, but at least is sympathetic enough to be worth following.
While Patrick Dempsey is the most recognizable face here (though ‘Suits’ fans might prioritize Hoffman), he’s mostly reduced to being the likeable lawman charged with trying to protect the citizens when the rampage kicks off. He’s perfectly fine in the role, though it’s a character without too much spice. And pity poor Gina Gershon, who shows up for all of two minutes only to perish at the hands of a shopping cart early during the Black Friday event.
‘Thanksgiving’: Final Thoughts
Amanda Barker “Lizzie”in Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
Eli Roth fans will be happy to see him back digging into gore, blood and guts after his most recent effort (he also has sci-fi ‘Borderlands’ on the way), and this time leavening the horror with more humor.
Is it nailed-on, all-time classic? Not really –– for all the invention in terms of the killer’s methods, the whole thing creatively feels more like eating reheated leftovers. But as anyone who has feasted on turkey and trimmings sandwiches the next day, that’s sometimes exactly what you’re looking for.
‘Thanksgiving’ receives 6.5 out of 10 stars.
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What’s the story of ‘Thanksgiving’?
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts –– the birthplace of the holiday.
Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.
Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays… Or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?
What is ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story’ about?
‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story’ chronicles the life and career of classically trained actor and director Robert Englund, who has become one of the most revolutionary horror icons of our generation. Throughout his career, Englund starred in many well-known movies, but shot to super-stardom with his portrayal of supernatural serial killer Freddy Krueger in the ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ franchise. This unique and intimate portrait captures the man behind the glove and features interviews with Englund and his wife Nancy, Lin Shaye (‘Insidious’), Eli Roth (‘Cabin Fever’), Tony Todd (‘Candyman’), Heather Langenkamp (‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’) and more.
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Who appears in ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story’?
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Robert Englund about ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story,’ having a documentary made about his life and career, how he helped Mark Hamill get an audition for ‘Star Wars,’ why Wes Craven’s ‘New Nightmare’ was ahead of its time, and what playing Freddy Krueger has meant to him.
Robert Englund in the documentary film, ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story,’ a Cinedigm release. Photo courtesy of Cinedigm.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about participating in this documentary and what it was like for you personally to look back on your life and your career?
Robert Englund: Well, I ran into these guys from Cult Screenings, and I’d been approached several times by different people, especially in this new world we live in with the blogosphere and everything, to do something. Almost instantly, Gary Smart and Chris Griffiths and I hit it off because they’re sort of like walking IMBD guys. They’re film fans. They’re fanboys like me. I don’t want to say I was testing them, but when I was getting to know them in a pub in the UK, I would be fighting for the name of an actor that I loved and they would go, “Strother Martin,” or, “Warren Oates.” Or I would be talking about a Hammer film and they would be saying things like, “Oh, you mean Herbert Lom.” It was great having them there to finish my sentences for me because, even though they’re younger than I am, they like a lot of the same films as I do. They’re not just into contemporary science fiction, superheroes, and horror. They liked the whole world of it and movies in general. So, I knew we had a simpatico going and I said okay to this. So, they began to follow me around and we would set up times. They were off doing research and looking for clips, or I would tell them something that they were intrigued by and they would look for that clip and colleagues that I’d worked with, independently of me. But COVID hit during all of this. I think they had more time to do their R&D while we were all sitting around with our masks on, but we kept getting together. I remember we were together in London a couple of times and in LA and, I think, in New York once, and we stayed in contact. But I just felt really comfortable with Gary and Chris. They really listened to me. I said, “I don’t want to be celebrated. If you want to celebrate somebody, do a documentary on Daniel Day-Lewis or somebody.” But I said, “I am a survivor.” This is, literally, as I sit here talking to you, this is 50 years ago that I was in Statesboro, Georgia, starring with one of the biggest stars of the ’70s, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Pamela Sue Martin from ‘The Poseidon Adventure,’ and doing this terrific film (‘Buster and Billie’) for Daniel Petrie, who directed ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ among other things, my first movie starring role. It’s 50 years since then, and I’m off to do another movie in October and I have a movie coming out this year. It’s this tale of a working actor, and the ups and downs and the misses. In fact, since we’ve done the documentary, I’ve gotten the question about what were the ones that got away and stuff like that. I’ve remembered a couple more. I realize, as actors, we beat ourselves up on those parts we didn’t get, even if they turned out to be flops, which in my case a couple of them did, and a couple of them weren’t made even though they were huge projects. You beat yourself up for months after that, and you don’t sleep well and then it’s gone. It’s in the ephemera. I realize that’s part of surviving too, is having to let go of that stuff. My wife berates me because I still complain about a film I directed and movies that I was up for before she even knew me and we’ve been together 35 years. I realize that’s an actor’s nightmare.
Robert Englund in the documentary film, ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story,’ a Cinedigm release. Photo courtesy of Cinedigm.
MF: For years there has been a rumor that you auditioned for Luke Skywalker in ‘Star Wars,’ but the film confirms that you were actually considered for Han Solo and helped get Mark Hamill an audition for the movie, can you talk about that?
RE: I was never up for Luke Skywalker. I briefly went in the office, and I believe this is right around the time Tom Selleck or somebody had turned down the role, and they were looking at Han to be older, like the uncle that’s older than Luke. For a split second, I think they thought, “Well, maybe he doesn’t have to be the older uncle, maybe he can be more of a contemporary of Luke’s like a galactic jet jockey or something.” I was trying desperately to get into ‘Apocalypse Now.’ My agent had finally got me in the door and I had been told I was too young for the Frederic Forrest role, the saucier, which was the role I wanted to read for. But they did look at me for the surfer, went to one of the Bottoms boys (Sam Bottoms). I was a real surfer, and I was tan and had long blonde hair. I looked like William Katt’s ugly, older brother back then. But I was dressed very military because it was ‘Apocalypse Now,’ but it was my thrift shop assemblage. They said, “Well, maybe,” and I think it was (producer) Fred Roos or somebody that brought me across the hall. He says, “They’re doing this space movie. You might be right for it.” I didn’t think much of it. I just went across the hall real quick. They took my Polaroid, and that’s it. But I heard the name George Lucas and I idolized George because ‘American Graffiti’ really speaks to my generation. I also saw the sides for Luke Skywalker and that name, Luke Skywalker, it’s such a great name. I remember going back, I think I had a drink at the Formosa afterwards because I didn’t get in ‘Apocalypse Now.’ Then, I drove over the hill to my pad in the Hollywood Hills, and in front of my door were these old cowboy boots. Mark used to take his shoes off, Mark Hamill, and leave them out there because we had carpeting, precious wall to wall carpeting, my girlfriend and I. I think my girlfriend was down the hall working on a first draft of ‘The Lost Boys,’ Jan Fischer. I walked in and Mark was there. I said, “Mark, I don’t know, but this sounds like you.” I think he got on the horn and called his agent. I think his agent gets real upset when I tell this story because she may have already submitted him. I certainly don’t know about that. But I think I was the one that made Mark aware of the project. I mean, Mark was a big television star then. I tell that not as if I helped Mark get the role, but I tell it as a “once upon a time in Hollywood story.” Once upon a time in Hollywood, the guy that played Freddy Krueger lived with a girl that wrote ‘Lost Boys’ and hung out with the guy that played Luke Skywalker. It’s just one of those moments of time that I think the fans love, that we all crossed paths. The people back east that think that all the horror actors hang out together at Schwab’s or something. Like Freddy, Jason and Pinhead are all sitting around having a milkshake at Schwab’s together.
Robert Englund in the documentary film, ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story,’ a Cinedigm release. Photo courtesy of Cinedigm.
MF: Finally, I’ve always thought that ‘Wes Craven’s New Nightmare’ was ahead of its time and one of the best film’s in the series. Can you talk about your experience working on that movie, having the opportunity to reinvent the character at that point in your career, and what playing Freddy Krueger has meant to you?
RE: Well, I’d love to talk about it intellectually. It took the release of ‘Scream’ for everybody to get Wes Craven’s ‘New Nightmare,’ and then it became huge on DVD. People understood that it was deconstructed, that we were making it and talking to the fans about them. We were kind of teasing ourselves, playing exaggerated versions of ourselves. A lot of that stuff was true, but exaggerated. I think Heather Langenkamp did have a stalker and, of course, we made it Freddy. It was Wes Craven wrestling a bit with his huge success at that time, and the fact that he’d exploited evil and what if the evil he exploited came back to haunt us all. It was this great kind of deconstructed meta movie. But at the time, what I took mostly from that shoot was I got to hang out every day at lunch because I would be done by 1:00pm, so I’d tear my makeup off and, even though we were all making money by that time, I’m never one to turn down a free lunch. I’d run over to the catering area and I’d sit down and John Saxon would just be coming in. John was coming in for his free lunch too. I was allowed a glass of wine because I wasn’t working anymore. John was going to have a nice long lunch and they would tell him when he needed to get in makeup. By that time, I’d worked with John three or four times and we’d been on international publicity junkets together. I got John to open up about his entire career. I got stories from John about working with Marlon Brando on ‘The Appaloosa.’ I got stories about his first movie ever with a young kid named Robert Redford, ‘War Hunt’ I think it was called, where he played a Native American and went out into the no man’s land and took scalps. I got to talk to John about Sandra Dee, and he dated Natalie Wood, and he knew Elvis Presley, James Dean, Sal Mineo and all of those stories, and what the golden age was like because he was right on the cusp of that. Then, he also segued into that kind of teen moment of time. But he worked with Jimmy Stewart on ‘Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation.’ He worked with Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall, just everybody. He worked for Quentin Tarantino on a two-hour special episode of ‘CSI,’ and Bruce Lee on ‘Enter the Dragon.’ I got the Bruce Lee stories, and all the Hong Kong stories. It was getting all of this golden age of Hollywood gossip from the horse’s mouth. Now I can have a beer with somebody on location and share one of those anecdotes with them as well. It was just a great experience for me because I was getting this oral history from the late great John Saxon.
Robert Englund in the documentary film, ‘Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story,’ a Cinedigm release. Photo courtesy of Cinedigm.
So far, HBO’s new series ‘The Idol’ has been more known for the controversy swirling around it than the provocative content of the show itself.
Created by ‘Euphoria’s Sam Levinson, Reza Fahim and musician Abel “The Weekend” Tesfaye, ‘The Idol’ hit the headlines back in March when Rolling Stone published a behind-the-scenes report of creative changes, chaos and sexually challenging scenes.
Levinson, of course, is no stranger to all that with ‘Euphoria’, but the news is threatening to swamp the show, even as it prepares to launch out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival next month.
(L to R) Lily-Rose Depp and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye on HBO’s ‘The Idol.’ Photograph by Eddy Chen/HBO.
Part of that news included the departure of original director Amy Seimetz, who left in April 2022, leading Levinson to step in and start guiding the direction of the show.
“‘The Idol’s’ creative team continues to build, refine, and evolve their vision for the show and they have aligned on a new creative direction. The production will be adjusting its cast and crew accordingly to best serve this new approach to the series. We look forward to sharing more information soon.”
(L to R) Lily-Rose Depp and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye on HBO’s ‘The Idol.’ Photograph by Eddy Chen/HBO.
What’s the plot of ‘The Idol’?
The series stars Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn, a fame-hungry young woman looking to take over the entertainment industry. When she meets Tedros, a powerful, sex-obsessed cult leader portrayed by Tesfaye, Jocelyn’s career expands to new heights.
Jocelyn and her team are inspired by the 1990s exploits of Britney Spears and co. but under the guidance –– control? –– of Tedros (who runs nightclubs but exerts a powerful influence over those who enter his orbit), that skyrockets in a whole other direction.
Lily-Rose Depp on HBO’s ‘The Idol.’ Photograph by Eddy Chen/HBO.
What was the reported behind-the-scenes drama on the show?
According to the Rolling Stone article, which included research interviews with several cast and members, the show began to change from the Seimetz-era story of a fallen pop starlet looking to reclaim her agency to a degrading love story with a hollow message.
Here’s what one crewmember said,
“What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century. The things that we subject our talent and stars to, the forces that put people in the spotlight and how that can be manipulated in the post-Trump world. It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”
But several sources disputed those reports, with a statement from the company describing it as ,
“One of the most exciting and provocative original programs. The creative team has been committed to creating a safe, collaborative, and mutually respectful working environment, and last year, the team made creative changes they felt were in the best interest of both the production and the cast and crew.”
The truth, as often, appears to lie somewhere in between. We’ll see if the narrative shifts once the show lands on the Max streaming service on Sunday June 4th.
Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye on HBO’s ‘The Idol.’ Photograph by Eddy Chen/HBO.
There has been some disturbed chatter in the last couple of days about video game adaptation ‘Borderlands’, which ‘Hostel’ and ‘Cabin Fever’ director Eli Roth shot way back in 2021 (it was long enough ago that star Cate Blanchett has had time to shoot ‘Tár’, which has just hit theaters).
But with word that Roth has stepped away from the film ahead of some re-shoots, there was naturally concern that it’s all gone a little wrong and that the director has somehow been fired.
Lionsgate is stepping up to do a little damage control and now comes word via Deadline that it’s more to do with a schedule clash.
Roth, you see, is finally ready to make the full-length movie ‘Thanksgiving’, spawned from a fake trailer he made to contribute to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ ‘Grindhouse’.
It was popular enough that there was talk of a full movie based on the trailer, but while Roth has sometimes mentioned it, he’s finally ready to make it a reality.
‘Thanksgiving’––in fake trailer form at least––features a slasher who makes his own carving board out of the inhabitants of a Massachusetts town during the annual turkey day. One of the pivotal scenes involved Roth himself, separated from his head while in the throes of passion with a date in a convertible.
(L to R) Director and actor Eli Roth and Brad Pitt in ‘Inglourious Basterds.’
Now, of course, there could be more to it than anyone is willing to admit––given the long post-production process of ‘Borderlands’, surely there has been time for Roth to schedule making ‘Thanksgiving’ so that it doesn’t clash with ‘Borderlands’. But movie shooting schedules can be tough to figure out with so much that needs to happen, so perhaps it really is just timing.
Still, the addition of Tim Miller––who last made ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’––is an interesting one. He’s got plenty of experience with the sort of effects load that might be involved in even re-shoots of something along the lines of the game adaptation.
‘Borderlands’ adapts the popular game title and stars Blanchett as Lilith, an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful man Atlas (Edgar Ramirez).
Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Kevin Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Jack Black), a persistently wiseass robot.
These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.
Naturally, ‘Borderlands’ has yet to announce a release date, but it’ll certainly need to impress to keep up with the current trend of successful movies and shows based on games.
Cate Blanchett as treasure hunter Lilith in Lionsgate’s ‘Borderlands.’
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