Patrick Dempsey is in talks with Spyglass to star in “Thanksgiving,” multiple media outlets have reported.
Yes, that’s Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving,” a violent slasher film based on the fake trailer from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s double feature “Grindhouse” from 16 years ago.
Chatter has existed about turning the jokey trailer into an actual movie, with Roth having written a screenplay over a dozen years ago. Fantasy became fact when Spyglass stepped in late last year to finance the picture, with shooting to begin in Toronto next month.
While plot details are mostly concealed, it is believed that Dempsey would play a small-town sheriff in Massachusetts who must fend off a holiday-specific murder spree.
The “Thanksgiving” trailer was one of several fake trailers played before the “Planet Terror” — Rodriguez’s zombie sci-fi horror flick and then before Tarantino’s “Death Proof,” when the films played as one long double feature in early 2007. One of the trailers, Rodriguez’s “Machete” starring Danny Trejo as an ass-kicking Mexican immigrant, spawned “Machete” in 2010 and “Machete Kills” in 2013.
Patrick Dempsey starred in mid-80s/early-90s releases such as “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Mobsters” and “Lover Boy.” He spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s as a jobbing working actor, appearing in films like “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Scream 3” and “Outbreak” before a turn as Dr. Derek Shepherd on Shonda Rhimes’ “Grey’s Anatomy” beginning in 2005 catapulted him back to proverbial star status.
He has since starred in the likes of “Enchanted,” “Disenchanted,” “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” “Freedom Writers” and “Maid of Honor.” Roth became a major player in theatrical horror with “Cabin Fever,” “Hostel” and “Hostel II” while also taking small acting roles in the likes of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds.”
Roth has since produced a slew of horror and genre films while directing “The Green Inferno,” Bruce Willis’ “Death Wish” remake, the Keanu Reeves morality play “Knock Knock” — starring a then-unknown Ana De Armas – and the quite successful PG-rated Jack Black/Cate Blanchett horror fantasy “The House with the Clock in its Wall.” Next up is Lionsgate’s star-packed video game adaptation “Borderlands” featuring Black, Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jamie Lee Curtis.
