Co-writer/director Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving took quite a while to become a reality. Debuting as a fake trailer with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double feature, Roth and his vision for a Turkey Day-themed slasher came from a personal place. Stretching all the way back to Roth’s childhood, and now emerging onto the 2023 movie release schedule, here’s the story behind how Thanksgiving finally carved a path into theaters.
How Thanksgiving’s Original Trailer Came To Be
During Grindhouse‘s production, Tarantino and Rodriguez wanted to include a handful of fake trailers for other movies of the same milieu as Planet Terror and Death Proof. But before they even asked friend and contemporary Eli Roth to make a contribution, the Cabin Fever director had the idea for Thanksgiving cooking with friend and co-writer Jeff Rendell.
When describing why this came to be, Roth’s story from the book Grindhouse: The Sleaze Filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature mentioned his own childhood in Plymouth, Massachusetts being a huge influence. Also, the following simple truth dawned on him as an avid fan of the horror genre:
Growing up in the ‘80s, it seemed like every holiday had its own horror film. … But year after year, each holiday passed without that one slasher film we were waiting for – Thanksgiving.
It was because of this that Eli Roth and Jeff Rendell were uniquely cut out to finally deliver a terrifying thriller set against a holiday that promotes bonding over food and massive Black Friday deals that have escalated into violence. But before that sort of news became commonplace, Roth and Rendell were having their own fun with the Pilgrim’s holiday.
Further along in the text of Eli Roth’s origin story, the man shared the fateful moment when he was asked to be a part of Grindhouse history. After getting the call to contribute a fake trailer, Roth moved into action with the following steps:
I called up Jeff and told him about Grindhouse and how we were going to shoot the trailer and that it would be part of Quentin and Robert’s movie. He couldn’t believe it was real–it seemed too good to be true. We had written so many ideas for the film over the years that we culled our favorite ones and wrote them into a four-page script.
Squeezing production into two days at the end of his schedule shooting Hostel: Part II, Prague doubled for Massachusetts, and Thanksgiving was born in its first iteration. According to more recent remarks from one of its fathers, the plan wasn’t always in place to make this movie into a full-fledged feature. For that to happen, a little extra persuasion was required.
How Eli Roth Was “Shamed” Into Making Thanksgiving Into A Feature Film
The good news about making Thanksgiving was that Eli Roth and Jeff Rendell finally made the horror movie kills they’d had in mind since childhood come to life. Attached as part of the intermission that saw the trailers for Edgar Wright’s Don’t and Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the S.S. entertain the Grindhouse crowd, their short, but brutal effort finally had form.
However, the kinda/sorta bad news is that Roth and Rendell never initially intended to make a total film out of their slasher dreams. Revealing as much to THR, Eli Roth told the publication that the project only ever came to be because of this story of encouragement from the internet:
We thought, ‘All right, we’re done. We made the best parts [in the fake trailer]. Now we don’t even have to make the movie. But for years, people just kept posting that trailer and badgering me and guilt tripping me, and it worked. Shaming the director worked in this case.
It didn’t seem to take too long for the wheels to turn after Thanksgiving’s 2007 debut. In fact, when CinemaBlend’s own Eric Eisenberg interviewed Roth in 2010, he confirmed the script’s origins. With a fanbase looking for fresh meat, all would truly have to be carved to get this bird off the ground. And Eli Roth wasn’t looking to just cash in on a childhood dream either.
In conversation during an AMC Theatres’ interview, Eli Roth admitted that the years after crafting that initial short had a huge hand in putting meat on the bones of Thanksgiving’s simple slasher short. Once again, the internet was something to be thankful for, as Roth revealed this crucial influence:
I didn’t want it to be a joke. The intention was always to make a real film … and it wasn’t until we saw those Black Friday viral videos that got us thinking.
Though that bawdy tongue-in-cheek tone didn’t leave Thanksgiving completely, it was dialed down in the favor of introducing an actual whodunnit/slasher rampage into the mix. The hard part would seem to be over at this point, but as any movie fan will tell you, this next twist is something that could have totally killed the project.
The Hurdles That Needed To Be Cleared For Thanksgiving To Finally Happen
The final stop on the road to Thanksgiving was, of course, clearing it with the folks who helped make it happen. This meant that Eli Roth naturally wanted to reach out to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, making sure that he was a-ok to proceed with this ambitious venture. With that also came the familiar sting of rights issues, as Roth explained thusly, in his THR interview:
I, of course, wanted them to be excited and supportive. And they are and they have been …so I gave Robert and Quentin very special thanks in the credits, as they deserve it, but they didn’t want to be involved in the film. They said, ‘This is your thing. Go do it.’ … There were some rights issues that took some time to untangle, but it all worked out and everyone was motivated to do it. So everything’s cool. It was never contentious. It just took time because of what [The Weinstein Company] went through, but eventually, we got through it and we’re really happy that it wound up the way it did.
With all of the permissions locked in and a script secured with co-writer/friend Jeff Rendell, the table was set for all of the bloody trimmings celebrating an underserved cinematic holiday. The wait was totally worth it, as CinemaBlend’s Thanksgiving review and others pointed out just how fun the finished product turned out. Still, you don’t have to rely on the feedback of critics anymore.
You can currently catch the movie in theaters, as Eli Roth intended! And if you’re hungry for more carnage, the rundown of upcoming horror movies is exactly what you need to plot your next horrifying delight. Just remember, when all is said and done, there will be no leftovers.