Thanksgiving: Eli Roth slasher secures worldwide theatrical distribution from TriStar Pictures

Last Updated on April 13, 2023

Sixteen years after the release of Grindhouse, director Eli Roth is finally about to head into production on a feature expansion of his faux trailer Thanksgiving – and Deadline reports that the slasher movie has just secured worldwide theatrical distribution from TriStar Pictures! According to Deadline, studios were lining up to get the chance to release Thanksgiving. “TriStar president Nicole Brown is all about filmmaker-driven projects, and once Roth announced this was his next film, she set out to make sure TriStar landed the pic and aggressively pursued the rights.“

Roth has been wanting to make a feature version of Thanksgiving ever since he put together the faux trailer for the Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse, which was released way back in 2007. He even wrote the screenplay with Jeff Rendell (who played the homicidal pilgrim in the trailer) a dozen years ago. Now it’s finally happening, 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 are producing 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 are overseeing the project for Spyglass while Caellum Allan and Kelseigh Coombs will oversee for TriStar.

If you’ve watched the Thanksgiving trailer, you have a good idea of what this slasher movie is going to be about. The Hollywood Reporter says plot details are on the thin side although it concerns a slasher who comes to small Massachusetts town with the intention of “creating a Thanksgiving carving board out of the town’s inhabitants,” per sources. Which lines up with what we’ve seen in the faux trailer.

Roth has been assembling the cast for the film in recent weeks. So far the cast consists of Addison Rae (He’s All That), Jalen Thomas Brooks (Walker), Nell Verlaque (Big Shot), Milo Manheim (Z-O-M-B-I-E-S), and Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy). Details on most of the characters are being kept under wraps – all we really know at this point is that Dempsey is playing the sheriff.

Are you looking forward to Eli Roth‘s Thanksgiving, and are you glad to hear TriStar Pictures will be handling the theatrical release? Let us know by leaving a comment below.