If many people say the same rumor does it become true? Is Eli Roth working on the full movie version of his fake trailer Thanksgiving (2007)? I hope this time is one of the times that speculations are right. Because an Instagram post by Production Weekly mentioning “Updated production schedule for Eli Roth‘s upcoming horror project, Roth directs from a script he wrote with Jeff Rendell. Principle photography in Massachusetts begins later next month” spread like wildfire. First of all, the only credited work by Jeff Rendell to date was being co-writer of the mentioned short film/fake trailer Thanksgiving (2007). Also, both the new Eli Roth project and Thanksgiving (2007) are set in Massachusetts. And the third coincidence is that this upcoming horror movie has been announced as Roth’s new film under the Miramax label, a company he hasn’t work with since –attention– Grindhouse (2007).
So far those are plausible coincidences. But since the fake trailer saw the light as an extra part of the Grindhouse (2007) double feature film, fans worldwide joined forces to claim for the full movie of the promising fictitious footage. Because you all remember Grindhouse (2007), right? That homage to exploitation double features in the 60s and 70s where Robert Rodriguez brought his heavily John Carpenter inspired horror action film Planet Terror (2007) and Quentin Tarantino astonished the whole universe with that masterpiece called Death Proof (2007). The two films were spiced-up with a series of fake trailers including Edgar Wright’s Don’t, Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the S.S., Robert Rodriguez’s Machete and Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. And if Robert Rodriguez came out with full feature films based on his fake trailer with Machete (2010) and sequels, why can’t Eli Roth do the same?
Producer, writer and director Eli Roth has already mentioned the possibility of a Thanksgiving film in the past. Back in 2007 the filmmaker mentioned in an interview with CinemaBlend that “Jeff [Rendell] has been working [on a Thanksgiving script]. I said that his deal is he has to work on the script while I’m promoting The Last Exorcism (2010), and as soon as I’m done in mid-September he’s going to fly to California, we’re going to sit down, and bang out the script”. But nothing else went public from that meeting. Later in 2016, during a Reddit AMA, Roth admitted to “have a draft not totally happy with. I want to put some more work into it so the film lives up to the trailer. We have the story and mythology cracked so now it’s about getting the kills right”.
Eli Roth filmed the Thanksgiving (2007) fake trailer while he was in production of his feature film Hostel: Part II (2007), that’s why several actors of the movie like Petr Vancura, Jordan Ladd or Liliyan Malkina appear in it. Other known faces like Michael Biehn, Jay Hernandez or Eli Roth himself also star in Thanksgiving (2007). Over ten years have past and the fans are still waiting for a full length Thanksgiving movie. Are you wondering why? Check out the 2 minutes taste of Thanksgiving (2007) and you’ll understand.
