A lot of genre fans had been waiting sixteen years to see director Eli Roth’s holiday slasher Thanksgiving (read our review HERE), ever since he contributed a faux trailer for the concept to the Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse back in 2007. The movie hasn’t exactly done massive numbers since reaching theatres a week and a half ago; so far it has racked up just over $30 million at the global box office. But that’s enough to get Sony’s TriStar Pictures to greenlight a sequel! Roth took to social media to announce that Thanksgiving 2 is a go, and he’ll be returning to the helm for this follow-up! Roth’s announcement can be seen at the bottom of this article.
Roth says that he and Thanksgiving co-writer Jeff Rendell (who played the homicidal pilgrim in the trailer) will be taking the next year to working on the Thanksgiving 2 script, then the sequel will be going into production, aiming for a 2025 release.
Roth had been wanting to make a feature version of Thanksgiving ever since he made the faux trailer, and even wrote the initial script with Rendell a dozen years ago. The feature finally happened thanks to Spyglass Media stepping in to provide the funding. Roth jumped at the chance to get the movie made, even though it meant having Deadpool‘s Tim Miller take over as director on the reshoots for his video game adaptation Borderlands. Roth and Rendell produced the film with Roger Birnbaum. Spyglass chairman and CEO Gary Barber and president of production Peter Oillataguerre serve as executive producers alongside Kate Harrison and Greg Denny of Cream Productions Inc. Oillataguerre and SVP Production & Development Chris Stone oversaw the project for Spyglass while Caellum Allan and Kelseigh Coombs did the same for TriStar.
If you’ve watched the original Thanksgiving trailer, you have a good idea of what this slasher movie is going to be about, but here’s the synopsis: After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the infamous holiday.
The film stars Nell Verlaque (Big Shot), Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy), Addison Rae (He’s All That), Jalen Thomas Brooks (Walker), Milo Manheim (Z-O-M-B-I-E-S), Gina Gershon (Bound), comedian Tim Dillon (who was in a TV show called Thanksgiving), Rick Hoffman (Hostel), Gabriel Davenport (Mistletoe Time Machine), Tomaso Sanelli (Titans), and Jenna Warren (The Young Arsonists).
Are you glad to hear Eli Roth will be making a Thanksgiving sequel? What would you like to see in Thanksgiving 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.