Movies

What Do You Guys Think Eli Roth’s ‘The Green Inferno’ Will Be?

Published

12 years ago

May 17, 2012

It was announced this morning that Worldview Entertainment will finance and produce The Green Inferno. This will be the first time director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel, Hostel 2) steps behind the camera in over 5 years. He’s been busy acting (Aftershock, Inglourious Basterds) and producing. He’s also probably been busy doing what I would be doing if I had the comforts that come with profit participation on Hostel, taking it easy and not rushing into anything. Waiting for the exact right project. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The only real information included with today’s announcement was that the plot points on the horror-thriller remain under wraps and production is set to begin in autumn in Peru and Chile. And that Roth, based on his original story, co-wrote the screenplay with Aftershock co-writer Guillermo Amoedo. So what’s it about?

The smart money seems to be on… Cannibals.

On our original News Bites announcement BD Reader bambi_lives8980 commented, “I would believe that Eli Roth’s new project dubbed ‘Green Inferno’ will be a sort of cannibal, third world survival horror flick, for several reasons. Firstly, Roth loves ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ (not sure about Ferox, but these types of movies for sure). Secondly he’s wanted Ruggero Deodato to make a sequel to Holocaust for years, if I remember correctly, but it just hasn’t happened yet, god knows if it will. Thirdly and lastly, wasn’t ‘The Green Inferno’ the name of the film-within-the-film in ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ where everyone gets killed and eaten?”

Let’s talk more inside…

Over at Badass Digest, Devin Faraci wrote a thoughtful article speculating in the same general territory (he also cites Hostel 2 as the best Roth film, which I agree with in many ways). Per Faraci the title, “will ring familiar with fans of 1970s cannibal movies like ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ and ‘Make Them Die Slowly’, as it’s what the Amazon rain forest is sometimes called in these wonderful Italian gore pictures. In fact ‘Cannibal Holocaust II’ (no relation to the original) was in some places titled Green Inferno… and is considered the last film of that particular cycle. So it’s fitting that Eli, a student of these sorts of movies, would try to start it back up with a film with the same title.”

If The Green Inferno is indeed a cannibal film I’m betting Roth is backing off his 5-year-old email to Nikki Finke (around the time of Hostel 2) that his next directorial effort would be PG13.

This all makes sense to me. What do you guys think?

EvanDickson

13 Comments

Movies

‘Abigail’ Just Outgrossed Fellow Universal Monsters Vampire Movies ‘Renfield’ and ‘Demeter’

Published

16 mins ago

April 30, 2024

John Squires

Now in its second week of release, the Radio Silence-directed Abigail is the third Universal Monsters vampire movie released in the last year, coming along in the wake of period piece The Last Voyage of the Demeter and horror-comedy Renfield. All three films have struggled at the box office, but Abigail at least has some good news to celebrate this week.

Renfield came along first in April 2023, ending its run with $26.4 million, while Last Voyage of the Demeter ended its own run with a mere $21.7 million. The vampire ballerina movie Abigail has already outgrossed both films, hitting $28.5 million at the worldwide box office this week.

The bad news is that Abigail‘s reported production budget was $28 million, so it seems unlikely to make a profit at the box office when you factor in the marketing spend and everything else on top of that figure. And that’s especially a bummer because Abigail is such a crowd-pleasing good time, with most horror fans agreeing that it’s one of this year’s best movies thus far.

The Universal Monsters brand has been struggling in the wake of Leigh Whannell’s hit The Invisible Man back in 2020, with these smaller spinoff movies failing to make their mark at the box office. Maybe it was never a good idea to release three low-key Dracula movies within the span of a single year, or maybe audiences just aren’t into vampires in general right now.

Whatever the case may be, Universal was smart to re-team with Whannell for a reimagining of the Wolf Man, which is howling its way into theaters in 2025. There’s a good chance that movie will blow the box office totals of Demeter, Renfield and Abigail out of the water, especially since it’s been a while since a Hollywood werewolf movie roared its way onto the big screen.

In the meantime, we expect Abigail will be coming home soon. Stay tuned for a date.

In Abigail, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”