Eli Roth

After breaking on the scene with Cabin Fever and the pair of Hostel films, Eli Roth has been mostly absent from the world of horror. That's okay, though, because his excuse for staying away from what made him famous seems to be a new-found fascination with sci-fi (plus he was a little busy practicing his fake Italian accent and baseball bat swing for Inglourious Basterds). He was long attached to write and direct an adaptation of Stephen King's brain-scrambling book Cell, but that fell through after Hostel Part II underperformed at the box office. That freed him up, however, to begin work on a rather secretive project called Endangered Species, which he has let slip was inspired by mass destruction films like Transformers and Cloverfield.

And now it looks like Roth has another sci-fi project in the works that might make a nice double-bill with the elusive Endangered Species. Summit Entertainment, no doubt buoyed by the tremendous performance of the Twilight Saga at the box office, has begun spending money on fresh pitches, one of which Shock Till you Drop tells us is simply titled Invasion. The script was written by relative newcomer Ben Magid, which will be ushered through Summit's development process by Roth and his producing-partner Eric Newman. There are no hints available yet as to whether or not they'll be taking a similar first-person-perspective approach, but the project is being described as Cloverfield-esque; a description I'd say fits quite well the brief setup Shock relayed:

His role as the bat-totting, Nazi-hating, Bearjew in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds aside, Eli Roth is best known for pretty much one thing: Making bloody, controversial, R-rated horror movies. Things have been quiet on Roth's directorial front, however, since 2007's Hostel: Part II failed to top the box office the same way his first journey to the seedy underground world of torture clubs. His initial follow-up project was supposed to be a film adaptation of Stephen King's sci-fi/horror hybrid novel Cell, but his involvement faded as the project transitioned from the big screen to the small screen.

Now, however, it looks like Mr. Roth has dropped the horror side of the hybrid all together and has decided to go completely science fiction on his next directorial project. The only detail currently known about his mystery film is that it's called Endangered Species, that Quentin Tarantino has once again helped him as an unofficial story editor, and that Roth tells Variety, "I haven't been this excited about an idea since the first Hostel", which coincidentally is another film in which Roth's pal Tarantino lent a refining hand in the scripting department.