Eli Roth's Fix for Indie Films' Bloodbath? Crowdfunding 2.0
'This is the most free I've ever felt,' says the horror director, who, like Robert Rodriguez, is fan-financing movies outside of the studios
Nicole LaPorte’s previous features include a piece on the resurgent spec script market, political documentaries under MAGA and how WFH is killing Hollywood.
“I will kill you onscreen,” Eli Roth, the fast-talking horror writer-director, tells me. “I will give you a bespoke death. It’s not like you’ll get massacred in a crowd. I will give you that death that, for the rest of your life, everyone will be like, That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
Roth, whose body of work as a director — including Hostel, Cabin Fever and Thanksgiving — has grossed $475 million globally, is practically giddy as he continues. “We’ll have to see what their acting level is,” he says, hedging just a little, “and how much they want to go for it. But it’ll be like, ‘okay, I can gouge out your eyes. I can chop off your head.’ Most people want their head chopped off so they can keep the head after. I’ll make a fake head and they can put that on their desk.”
The only thing standing between you and the conversation piece of your dreams? You have to invest $1 million in The Horror Section, Roth’s new indie studio.
Described as a “360-degree media company,” Roth’s studio is set up to crank out slasher pics (and TV shows, games, podcasts and live events). The movies, some of which the director says will be unrated — “I feel like I’ve had the handcuffs on and I need to go a little unhinged” — will be self-distributed through a partnership with Iconic Events.
So how does it work? And what is the vision to bypass the traditional studio system for all filmmakers? The real innovation is in the financing.