We're getting a new film from Eli Roth this Thanksgiving, and in a perfect world that Roth film would be a feature expansion of his awesome contribution to GRINDHOUSE's block of faux trailers, the '80s slasher THANKSGIVING. Roth has always said he wanted to make a THANKSGIVING feature and this year marks the 10th anniversary of GRINDHOUSE, so this would be a great time for it.
Alas, we are not in a perfect world, and a THANKSGIVING feature still doesn't exist. Instead, the Eli Roth-directed film we're getting this November is a project I have much less enthusiasm for than I would have for THANKSGIVING, a remake of DEATH WISH starring Bruce Willis.
MGM and Annapurna Pictures have partnered up on DEATH WISH and have announced that they will be releasing the film on November 22nd. That's a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and comes just five days after Warner Bros. will be releasing the DC Comics superhero team-up movie JUSTICE LEAGUE. A release so close to JUSTICE LEAGUE doesn't seem very safe to me, but they're going for it.
Written by Roth and Dean Georgaris from an original draft by Joe Carnahan (ED WOOD's Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski also worked on the script at one point), DEATH WISH centers on
Paul Kersey, whose life is destroyed by a violent crime against his wife and daughter. Frustrated that the bad guys were not brought to justice for the nefarious act inflicted on his family, he starts hunting for the perpetrators himself.
Bruce Willis is playing Paul Kersey, which is the main reason for my low level of enthusiasm for this, because Willis usually doesn't seem very enthusiastic to be in movies these days, resulting in a noticeable lack of effort on his part. He didn't even try to act like John McClane in the most recent DIE HARD movie. But maybe he didn't sleepwalk through DEATH WISH, we'll have to wait and see.
Willis's co-stars include Beau Knapp, Vincent D’Onofrio, Dean Norris, Mike Epps, Kimberly Elise, and Ronnie Gene Blevins, with Elisabeth Shue and Camila Morrone as Kersey's wife and daughter.