Eli Roth Ditches Hostel III, Cabin Fever 2, Cell
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By Dave Gonzales on
July 10, 2009
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Eli Roth claims that having a role in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds didn't go to his head. That's not why he's stepping away from the Hostel franchise and is not involved in discussions for a straight-to-DVD trilogy-maker that's sure to include a number of things to make horror fans queasy. He's also not that hot on concocting a sequel to Cabin Fever.
Roth is just growing up as a director, avoiding remakes and unnecessary sequels that take the franchise in a direction he doesn't want to go, or at least that's what he told Shock Till You Drop.
"The studio had made a lot of money with [a franchise] so they want to keep going, and the fans, there's demand for it, and great. If I started something and other people want to continue it, go for it. I'm just not involved in anyway. There's no negativity about it. I just said, 'I put everything in my life for three years into these movies. I've said everything I have to say with it. I feel very lucky I got to make them and the fans responded the way they did, and if you guys want to continue it, great, go ahead.'"
"... I remember I loved 'Friday the 13th Part IV. I didn't expect that movie to be that great. I remember loving 'Nightmare on Elm Street III', going 'Wow, I had no idea' and then of course now, it's like, 'Oh yeah, Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell, of course.' But I'm all for sequels, as long as it's a well-made movie, I don't care if it's a sequel, a prequel, a remake or an original film. If it's well-made film and it's entertaining and I got my money's worth, then I love it, I'm all for it."
Roth also revealed that he's stepped away from an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Cell, about a New England artist trying to reunite with his son while a cell phone signal turns most of the popualtion into murderous crazies.
"I walked off 'Cell' kind of quietly," he admitted. "There was just sort of a difference in opinion on how to make to film and what the story should be, and there's a different direction the studio wants to go with it. [...] I've also learned that I really am only interested in directing original stories that I write, that's another thing I learned through that whole process."
Roth's next movie is going to be Endangered Species, a sci-fi epic that he plans to start casting this fall. The flick is still part mystery, though Roth has said that he watched Transformers and Cloverfield and wanted to do a PG-13 "action/sci-fi/mass-destruction film."
He's also in the producer's chair. Or the producer's Laz-E-Boy, depending on how active a producer Eli Roth is (I'm betting chair or producer's Segway) for rapper RZA's kung fu movie The Man with the Iron Fist and has been co-producing an exorcism movie called Cotton, directed by Daniel Stamm, which is in post production.
It looks like we're a Nazi-killing drama, a sci-fi epic, a kung fu film and a exorcism movie away from watching Eli Roth take on horror again, but if each of those films can push Roth off into new realms of filmmaking, the ride alone might be worth it...
..and, of course, the inevitable and gory return to hard-R fare...
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