david lynch's genius protege....Eli ROTH..

[MacGuffin]

Filmmaker Eli Roth writing horror, sci-fi scripts

MORELIA, Mexico (Hollywood Reporter) - Life after the "Hostel" horror franchise is keeping producer-director Eli Roth busy these days as he juggles a handful of projects.

Roth said at the Morelia International Film Festival on Monday that he expects to finish a script this month for the sci-fi project "Endangered Species," which would mark his return to the director's chair after several years of focusing on acting and producing. Roth was visiting Morelia with Quentin Tarantino to promote "Inglourious Basterds," the festival's opening film.

Roth added that he is penning a script for the horror flick "Thanksgiving," which originally appeared as a faux trailer for Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse." He is directing, producing and possibly acting in the film.

As a producer, Roth and production partner Strike Entertainment will be showing director Daniel Stamm's exorcism movie "Cotton" to Sundance officials in two weeks. Roth also is developing the martial arts film "The Man With the Iron Fist" with rapper-turned-director Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, more commonly known as the RZA. Arcade, Roth and producer Eric Newman's shingle, are producing.

Roth is excited about charting new territory as a producer and director. "I haven't been this excited since the first 'Hostel,'" he said. "I had to divorce myself from the ('Hostel') project 100% to free up my brain for other things."

[Stefen]

Throw it in the pile.

[wilder]

Keanu Reeves, Eli Roth To Team On Thriller 'Knock Knock'
via Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: There are going to be plenty of film packages that spark buyers at Cannes, and here's a fresh one that isn't even waiting for the Croisette. Keanu Reeves has just committed to star for Eli Roth in Knock Knock, a psychological thriller that Roth wrote and will rothedirect.  Reeves will play a happily married family man who's left alone for the weekend. Two beautiful girls show up at his house, and turn his life upside down. Those femme fatales will be played by Lorenza Izzo, who just starred for Roth in the September 5 release The Green Inferno, and Ana de Armas, who just played Robert Duran's wife in Hands Of Stone opposite Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro. Ignacia Allamand, who also starred in Green Inferno, plays the man's wife. Colleen Camp, a catalyst in assembling this film as producer, will also play a role, as will Aaron Burns, who also just worked with Roth in The Green Inferno.

Roth confirmed all this for me, and said that it has all come together in what has to be record time. He wrote the script with Green Inferno collaborators Eli Roth, Nicolas Lopez, Guillermo Amoedo. Reeves loved it, just committed and has come aboard as exec producer. Roth starts production April 14 in Santiago, Chile (which is far from the earthquake so that is not a disruption).

"I had a window before I promote Green Inferno, and I wanted to make a movie like Roman Polanski or Paul Verhoeven made when they were young, a classic psychosexual thriller that's not a horror movie, but would have everyone on the edge of their seats. Getting Keanu is amazing, he's a fine actor who is perfect for this. I feel I can have this movie ready for Toronto if I need to, and he's catching a plane tomorrow and we'll be fitting him for wardrobe right away."

There is already scrapping going on by foreign sales companies chasing the international rights, and domestic distributors. CAA will be selling the domestic rights with Cassian Elwes and most of the dealmaking will take place in Cannes.

Camp, Roth, Nicolas Lopez, Miguel Asensio, Nicolas Lopez and Tim DeGraye are producing, while Teddy Schwarzman, Reeves, Peter Traynor, Larry Spiegel and Sondra Locke are exec producers. The film's a coproduction between Camp Grey, Black Bear Pictures, Sobras International Pictures. Roth tells me he will have a sizzle reel ready to show at the market at Cannes. Some have him pegged as the maker of splatter films, or the baseball bat swinging killer of Nazis from Inglourious Basterds. He is assuredly both of those, but he's at heart a shrewd filmmaker who knows how to cover the bases on the business side of his movies.