Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving Reportedly Seeking Patrick Dempsey to Star

The feature-length adaptation of Eli Roth’s fake Thanksgiving trailer, as featured in the film Grindhouse, is reportedly looking to add Patrick Dempsey to its cast, according to Deadline. Fans who are familiar with the original trailer will remember that a majority of the figures featured in that short were young coeds, so it’s currently unknown what role Dempsey could be taking on, with the outlet noting that “Roth wanted a face front and center and thought Dempsey would be perfect given its not the typical role you usually see the former Grey’s Anatomy star in.” Stay tuned for details on Roth’s Thanksgiving.

The original trailer teased a film in which a killer was terrorizing a small New England town leading up to the November festivities of the holiday, with that short leaning more into the grisly kills of the concept than the actual plot. The new film will see him collaborating with the writer of the original trailer, Jeff Rendell, to script the adaptation.

Grindhouse delivered audiences two feature-length movies from Robert Rodriguez, who helmed Planet Terror, and from Quentin Tarantino, who delivered Death Proof. The experience was relatively experimental in nature, in that it was meant to evoke the experience of going to a double feature of B-list movies that audiences could buy a single ticket to. In attempts to be as authentic to that concept as possible, the filmmakers enlisted Roth, as well as Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie, to craft trailers for similarly schlocky fare. 

Rodriguez also crafted a trailer for the fictional Machete, which starred Danny Trejo, that he would go on to adapt into a full-length experience, which earned the sequel Machete Kills. While neither Wright nor Zombie have expressed interest in the possible expansion of their fake trailers Don’t and Werewolf Women of the SS, respectively, Roth has been sharing for years how much he’d like to convert that trailer into an entire movie. 

Back in 2007, Roth shared with CinemaBlend, “Jeff has been working. I said that his deal is he has to work on the script while I’m promoting The Last Exorcism, and as soon as I’m done in mid-September he’s going to fly to California, we’re going to sit down, and bang out the script.”

During a Reddit AMA back in 2016, Roth admitted, “Have a draft not totally happy with. I want to put some more work into it so the film lives up to the trailer. We have the story and mythology cracked so now it’s about getting the kills right.”

Stay tuned for details on the future of Thanksgiving.

Would you like to see Dempsey join the project? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!