While doing the press rounds to promote his Academy Award-nominated comedy drama, The Holdovers, last year, Paul Giamatti expressed a desire to star in a horror project.
“Horror. I’d like to do more horror. I love horror,” he said when asked what type of movie he'd like to work on next. "I like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a lot. I love horror. Love it!” When the interviewer was a taken aback that the well-respected actor is such a Chainsaw fan, Giamatti said: “Great movie! It’s a great movie. No, no, no, no, no, it’s a great movie, it’s a beautiful movie.”
"I don’t think I could do the killer," he went on. "But I don’t know what I would be. I would love to do something… I don’t know if I want to do that exactly, but I like horror."
Well, Giamatti got his wish - but it's hard to imagine anyone predicting the particular horror property he chose to be a part of!
According to THR (confirming a recent rumor from Daniel Richtman), the Billions star has signed on to play the lead in a TV series based on the Hostel movies, with Eli Roth, Chris Briggs and Mike Fleiss all returning. The show, which doesn't have a platform attached just yet, is described as being a “modern adaptation” and an “elevated thriller” that’s also a “reinvention” of the horror franchise.
Roth and Briggs will pen the script, with the former set to direct. Roth, Briggs and Fleiss will all executive produce.
Details on Giamatti's character are being kept under wraps, but there's speculation that he will play the owner of the titular hostel that doubles as a sadistic chamber of horrors for unfortunate travellers.
Roth shared the following image to his Instagram account shorty after the series was announced.
"Best friends Josh (Derek Richardson) and Paxton (Jay Hernandez) decide to spend the summer after college graduation on an all-out backpacking trip across Europe. While stopping in Amsterdam to indulge their tastes for drugs and sex, they meet Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), a like-minded traveler from Iceland. When the three bachelors set off to investigate enticing rumors of a Slovakian hostel in a city populated by lusty women, they find themselves drawn unwittingly into a deadly game."
What do you make of this news? Are you a fan of the Hostel movies? Drop us a comment down below.