Eli Roth’s cannibal horror The Green Inferno is heading into UK cinemas (finally) on February 12th, and the director took the time out to talk to us about the film (which you will hear on an upcoming episode of the Flickering Myth podcast). Up next for the director, however, is the giant shark movie Meg, and Roth told us about his unusual pitch for the movie.
“When I met with the studio I basically said, ‘You know Pac-Man eating dots? Well the shark is Pac-Man and the dots are people’,” Roth joked with us. “That’s the movie I’m making. Give me five surfers to go in one bite. There’s no fighting, there’s no trashing – it just swallows and keeps moving. You’re a dot in a Pac-Man maze.”
“They loved it,” he continues. “It’s going to be scary and it’s going to be exciting.”
Meg has been in development in some form or another since 1997 when Disney first bought the rights to Steve Alten’s novel MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror. Disney however did not want to compete with Warner Bros.’ Deep Blue Sea, and at one point Speed and Twister director Jan de Bont was attached to direct. Being Roth’s first big budget movie (the rumour is $150 million and his last film, Knock Knock cost just $3 million), he’s excited to jump on board.
“I think one of the reasons it took 20 years was that they never figured out how to get the story right,” Roth told us. “Because no one knew how to do the effects to make them convincing. And now we’re in a place where you can really do a hybrid of practical and digital [effects]. You have to make it look organic, otherwise the movie won’t work. I’m really, really excited about it.”
SEE ALSO: Read our reviews of The Green Inferno here and here
The Green Inferno is finally getting a UK theatrical release on February 12th. Check out the poster here and trailer here.
Originally published February 1, 2016. Updated November 29, 2022.
