| ELI ROTH
 | Eli Roth mini-bio: Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. He is part of the group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack, because of their association and their focus on the horror genre. Roth is known for making extremely violent, low-budget horror box office hits. Roth's films have been worldwide box office and DVD hits, despite their lack of budgets and stars.Feature Film Writing and Directing Career:Cabin Fever -  In 1995, a year after graduating from NYU, Roth co-wrote Cabin Fever with his roommate and friend from NYU Randy Pearlstein. Roth based the premise of the script on his own encounter with an allergy he contracted while training horses at a farm in Selfoss, Iceland, in 1991. Much of the script was written while Roth was working as a production assistant for Howard Stern's movie Private Parts; Stern remembered and congratulated Roth on his January 11, 2006 radio show.Roth's NYU classmate Evan Astrowsky agreed to sign on as a producer for Cabin Fever with Roth; Astrowsky brought the project to a pair of producers he had worked with before, Lauren Moews and the North Carolina-based Sam Froelich. The four producers were eventually able to raise enough money to begin production, but only three days before shooting began the main funding pulled out. They had already spent $50,000, but did not shut down production, and were raising money every day while they were shooting. Cabin Fever was filmed in 2001 on a budget of $1.5 million (raised with private investors). Cabin Fever was sold at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival for $3.5 million dollars after a massive bidding war between eight studios.It was the biggest sale of the festival that year. Cabin Fever made $34,553,394 theatrically worldwide. It was the highest grossing film for Lionsgate that year (who also committed $12 million to prints and advertising for the film).  Lionsgate used the theatrical success of Cabin Fever to raise the money to purchase Artisan Entertainment. Lionsgate's stock rose from $1.98 a share at the time Cabin Fever was purchased at the Toronto Film Festival to nearly $6 a share after "Cabin Fever" was released theatrically. "Cabin Fever" was the most profitable film released in 2003, earning over 20 times its budget back at the box office.  Hostel -  Roth's second feature film, Hostel, was made on a budget of a little more than $4 million, in 2005. It opened to #1 at the box office in January 2006, taking in $20 million dollars opening weekend, and knocking out The Chronicles of Narnia from the #1 spot (although it was the 5th weekend for Narnia, which still managed to gross $16 million). It went on to gross $80 million worldwide in box office, and over $180 million worldwide on DVD. In April 2006, on Eli Roth's birthday, Hostel opened on DVD at #1, again outselling The Chronicles of Narnia, which had opened at the #1 sales slot only one week prior. The movie takes place in Slovakia, where three college students visit a hostel, where they think that all of their sexual fantasies will come true. Instead, they find an international syndicate with the express purpose of torturing and killing backpackers for the sadistic pleasures of rich businessmen. The film pushed the boundaries of realistic violence and was voted the #1 scariest movie moment on the Bravo TV special 100 Scariest Movie Moments: Even Scarier Moments. Empire Magazine readers voted "Hostel" the Best Horror Film of 2006. In October 2007 H.M.V. stores annual horror poll ranked "Hostel" as one of the ten scariest horror films of all time. It was the only film on the list made after 1988.  Roth reportedly turned down numerous studio directing jobs to make Hostel. Roth took a directing salary of only $10,000 on Hostel in order to keep the budget as low as possible, so there would be no limitations on the violence. Roth shot the film as an NC-17 movie, but the film passed through the ratings board with an R. In January 2006, film critic David Edelstein in New York Magazine credited Roth among other directors in creating the horror sub-genre 'torture porn,' or 'gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Writer and Attorney Julie Hilden denounced the term 'Torture Porn' and defended the "Hostel" films in an essay. Roth said that the critics who use the term torture porn completely missed the point of his film, which was specifically about people who use violence as a sexual act, and said the term reveals more about the critic's lack of understanding of horror films than it does about the film itself. Noted "Le Monde" film critic Jean-Francois Raugier, head of the Cinematheque in France, put "Hostel" as the best American Film of 2006 on his annual top ten list.Thanksgiving -  In 2007, Roth directed the faux trailer segment Thanksgiving for Grindhouse, in addition to appearing in Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's segment of the film. Roth and co-writer Jeff Rendell won a 2007 Spike TV Scream Award for Best Screamplay for their writing in "Grindhouse," sharing the award with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Rob Zombie, and Edgar Wright. Hostel II -  Hostell II was considered by many a box office bomb. It opened in 6th place with only $8.2 million and went on to total $17.6 million by the end of its theatrical run. The film made more than its budget of $10.2 million. Comparatively, the original, with a much more modest budget of $4.8 million, opened at #1 with $19 million ($2 million more than Part II's final gross) and went on to make over $47 million.Distributors attributed this to the summer release date opposite summer blockbusters and major movie stars, as well as the film's workprint leaked from a Lionsgate studio executive online prior to the film's official release: "I don't know if it was the most downloaded film of all time, but there are tracking services that track what movies are being downloaded. And a copy of "Hostel 2" leaked out before its release and they had it, it was like millions and millions of hits. Not only was it downloaded, but in the countries it was downloaded — like Mexico and Brazil — there were copies on the street for practically a penny. You could buy "Hostel 2" for a quarter in Mexico City. As a result, in a lot of countries where the piracy was bad, they just didn't even release it."  Hostel Part II was nominated for six Spike TV Scream Awards, including best horror film, and best director.It is doubtful that Hostel II made any profit even after the DVD release, considering the large amount of advertising and marketing budget expended by Liongate, as well as the distributor's split fee with theatres. As a result of Hostel II's poor box office performance, Hostel III's pre-production has been permanently on-hold.  Other Projects -Roth was working on other film projects, including an adaptation of the Stephen King novel Cell, though he stated on his myspace website he is no longer involved with the project. He also talked about doing a film called Trailer Trash, a film made of fake trailers; according to an appearance on G4, Roth was quoted saying "Trailer Trash is not a horror film, it's a comedy. It will be very R-rated and completely insane, and I'm producing it with Mike Fleiss". However, on July 9, 2009, Eli Roth officially confirmed that he is no longer working on "Cell", but that the Weinstein Company could make it with someone else.  He is currently producing a kung fu movie entitled Man with the Iron Fist. It is being written, directed, and scored by The RZA, who stars in the film. Quentin Tarantino is said[by whom?] to be involved with the movie as well. In a recent interview with CHUD, Eli spoke on the movie:"This movie will have everything martial arts fans could want, combined with RZA's superb musical talent. This project has been his dream for years, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. And fans should know that yes, there will be blood...This ain't no PG-13."  Roth has been a guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "Your World Today with Neil Cavuto," "The Howard Stern Show," "Late Night With Conan O'Brien,""Sunday Morning Shootout," and served as a guest judge on the filmmaking reality series "On The Lot." He has been profiled and interviewed in the New York Times, G.Q., Elle Magazine, Maxim, Le Monde, La Republica, Time Out: London, Time Magazine, Empire Magazine, Premiere, and Italian Vogue. Dolce & Gabbana and Nike give him clothes for all his public appearances. Roth has also appeared three times as an answer in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, and was a subject of the G4 profile show "Icons." (2007) Eli Roth has also been a frequent contributor to DVD extras content (liner notes and video commentary) for horror film distributors Grindhouse Releasing/Box Office Spectaculars, particularly on two of his favorite films Juan Piquer Simon's Pieces and the upcoming North American DVD release of Lucio Fulci's Cat in the Brain. "Men's Fitness" magazine voted Roth Most Fit Director in their July 2006 issue, a title Roth takes very seriously with a strict workout routine that he documents on the "Hostel" DVDs. Roth claims he treats every red carpet like it was a Milan runway, and often jokes that he only makes films as a way to live out his lifelong dream of being a male supermodel. He spoke of his love for fashion in his interview in the October 2007 issue of Italian Vogue.  Other Work -Roth is an animator, having written, produced, directed, animated and voiced two series: Chowdaheads (1999) and The Rotten Fruit (2000). Chowdaheads was co-written and co-voiced with friend Noah Belson, and was made with traditional hand-drawn animation. The Rotten Fruit, which Roth again co-wrote and co-voiced with Belson, was made with stop-motion animation done with foam puppets.Roth also participated in the 2006 animated comedy film, Disaster!, voicing the lumberjack during the opening moments of the film. The comical 'death by squirrels' the lumberjack suffers is inspired by Roth's gruesome and often ironic ways of killing characters in his own films. Roth participated in a DVD audio commentary for Blood Sucking Freaks in 1996, having no formal credits, as a "Blood and Guts Expert." The DVD is one of the highest selling DVDs for Troma. Roth often makes uncredited cameos in Troma films, thanks to NYU friend Gabe Friedman, a former Troma editor also hailing from the Boston area.  Roth had a role in Quentin Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, Death Proof, in a scene with Jordan Ladd. Tarantino was so impressed by Roth's brief role as Justin in Cabin Fever, he asked Roth to audition for the film. Roth left his preproduction on Hostel Part II in Prague to fly to Austin, Texas for one week to film the scene at the Texas Chili Parlor. Roth said working as an actor for Tarantino was like taking a masterclass in directing, and said the only directors he would ever act for were people who had won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Roth also made appearances in several projects that David Lynch directed for Davidlynch.com. Roth was profiled on the G4 TV show Icons, and was on the cover of Forbes magazine's Hollywood's most profitable stars issue. Eli Roth brought the now-infamous Raiders of the Lost Ark shot-for-shot remake by kids to the attention of both Harry Knowles and Steven Spielberg. Roth had a copy in his collection of videos for years before showing it at Harry Knowles' Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival in December, 2002. The response was so overwhelming that Roth took the tape to his very first meeting at Dreamworks, and gave it to an executive to give to Steven Spielberg. The executive called Roth the next week saying that Spielberg loved it and wanted to contact the filmmakers. Roth had never met the filmmakers, but Google searched every name in the credits until he got a hold of Jayson Lamb, the cinematographer. The three filmmakers, Lamb, Chris Strompolis, and Eric Zala (a former Activision employee), had not spoken to each other in years when Roth contacted them out of the blue, saying that Spielberg wanted to write them a letter. This reunited the friends, who began touring the world doing charity screenings with the film. Roth felt that the film was so powerful he had to do whatever he could to make sure fans around the world saw it. Roth introduced the film at its premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in May 2008, five and a half years after he first got the tape to Knowles and Spielberg. Eli Roth is co-starring with Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic Inglourious Basterds playing Donny Donowitz, a.k.a. "The Bear Jew." Roth also guest directed the Nazi propaganda film-within-the-film, Nation's Pride.     
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ELI ROTH INTERVIEW 1 | | Eye color: | | Height: 6' (1.83 m) | | Nickname(s):Gorilka | | Notable feature(s): Collaborations with directors like Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch | | Education: NYU | | Family: Brother of Adam J. Roth & Gabriel Roth, Son of Sheldon & Cora Roth | | Resides in: | | Religious affiliations: Jewish | | Political affiliation: | | Personal interests/hobbies: | | Charities/Causes: | | Other: | | |
