Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving was never supposed to be an actual movie. Released as a fake trailer as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 anthology Grindhouse, Thanksgiving was one more schlocky homage right alongside Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun. But in 2023 (after those other two fake trailers had already become feature-length films of their own), Roth adapted the concept into a modern teen slasher about a killer disguised as an American pilgrim.
Thanksgiving was a hit, and a sequel was announced soon afterward. Three years later, we’re still waiting, and in the meantime, Roth is releasing another original movie, Ice Cream Man, under his own production studio, The Horror Section.
So what’s the latest on Thanksgiving 2? Is it still happening? And if so, when? Polygon had a chance to talk to Roth about Ice Cream Man (more from that conversation in another article soon) and he opened up about the difficulties of filming the sequel, along with his plan to make it happen.
“It’s just really a question of trying to figure out how we can shoot this movie and scheduling everybody, because everybody’s just so busy,” Roth tells Polygon.
He’s not exaggerating. Thanksgiving‘s young cast has only become more successful in the three years since its release.
Roth rattles off their accomplishments: “Jalen Thomas Brooks is on Off Campus. Nell Verlaque has her MGM Plus show, and she’s on Overcompensating with Tomaso. Addison’s on a world tour. Milo’s filming a movie. Everybody’s working. The cast is incredible. I’m so, so, so, so happy for them. Getting them all in a room is tough.”
However, Roth has a plan, which starts with Jeff Rendell, who wrote 2023’s Thanksgiving. The two have already pretty much finalized the script for Thanksgiving 2, so that part shouldn’t take too long.
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Image: Sony Pictures -
Image: Sony Pictures
“I’m gonna sit down with Jeff Rendell after the release of Ice Cream Man,” he says. “We’re just gonna go through one last pass of the script. And then I’m gonna basically have the movie locked and loaded and figure out how we do this. We can’t get everyone together again for four weeks the way we could last time, but how can I get everyone in the room for this scene and then split them up for that scene?”
In a perfect world, Roth would prefer to actually have the entire cast together for a month to shoot Thanksgiving 2, but that seems impossible, so he’ll have to make do.
“I love them,” he says. “They’re my friends and we had a great time making it. We all wanna do it. It’s just a question of scheduling.”
Thanksgiving is streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus. Ice Cream Man releases in theaters on Aug. 7.