{"id":71696,"date":"2025-08-16T02:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T02:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71696\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T02:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T02:41:07","slug":"how-his-horror-section-is-opening-scary-films-in-theaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71696\/","title":{"rendered":"How His Horror Section Is Opening Scary Films in Theaters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEli Roth<\/a> has spent decades in the entertainment industry, but he\u2019s still chasing the high of telling his schoolyard friends about the wild new movie he just saw.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf someone had given me this tape in seventh grade and I watched it, would I be running around telling all my friends, \u2018We gotta watch this again right now\u2019?\u201d he says. \u201c\u201dYou\u2019re coming over after school\u2019 and I\u2019m gonna watch their reaction watching it. On a very basic level, that is still how I gauge these movies. Is this something that I want to call Quentin [Tarantino] and go, \u2018Dude, dude, dude, you gotta see this\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat mindset is the impetus behind The Horror Section<\/a>, Roth\u2019s new scary movie company. Earlier this year, the organization made headlines when Roth offered regular fans a chance to invest. Nearly 2,500 people joined<\/a> during the March launch period, pledging anywhere from $100 to $1 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough there have been several announcements about Horror Section plans so far \u2014 including financing Roth\u2019s next original film<\/a>, \u201cIce Cream Man\u201d \u2014\u00a0its first project is gearing up to hit theaters. The Horror Section\u2019s initial acquisition title was \u201cJimmy & Stiggs,\u201d a gory, bonkers alien film written and directed by Joe Begos opened Friday on around 800 screens. While Begos has made a name for himself among the indie horror community with films like 2019\u2019s \u201cVFW\u201d and 2022\u2019s \u201cChristmas Bloody Christmas,\u201d \u201cJimmy & Stiggs\u201d is an entirely different beast.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTi West called me and said, \u2018Have you seen Joe\u2019s movie?’\u201d Roth says. \u201cHe goes, \u2018He made an old school, early-Peter Jackson movie. He shot it on film, it\u2019s all practical effects and it\u2019s pretty insane, and it might be right for your company.\u2019 I hadn\u2019t even thought about releasing other people\u2019s movies \u2014\u00a0we were going to distribute our own films.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYet \u201cJimmy & Stiggs\u201d gave Roth that same feeling he\u2019s been chasing since childhood.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was blown away,\u201d he says. \u201cRarely do I watch a movie that makes me say, \u2018How the fuck did they do that?\u2019 I loved it. It really reminded me of when I saw \u2018Dead Alive\u2019 in the theaters, or that time when I was 15 and I saw \u2018Evil Dead 2\u2019 unrated. They just melt your brain. You can\u2019t believe someone made a movie that wet, that violent, that insane, that unhinged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo Roth reached out to the team at Iconic Events about getting extreme horror in theaters, and the partners headed to CinemaCon in April with the hope of speaking to theater owners. Sure enough, he was able to set up a flurry of meetings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat really shocked me was that I could sit down and talk to the theater owners,\u201d Roth says. \u201cThey just set up meetings for me at CinemaCon, and for an entire day from 7:00 a.m. on, I met with every theater chain. They said, \u2018We\u2019d love this. We would definitely do it if it says \u201cEli Roth Presents.\u201d We\u2019ll put it in our multiplexes.\u2019 We\u2019re talking AMC, Cinemark, Marcus, IPic, Alamo \u2026 all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRoth says he also was eager to work with the theaters to create additional perks to incentivize moviegoers and make the theater proprietors feel special as well. In order to interest owners, Roth pushed for a theatrical-first experience that doesn\u2019t rush films to VOD after just 18 days. He also included custom theater greetings for individual chains and theaters, and non-English messaging as well. For fans, there are unique extras. \u201cJimmy & Stiggs\u201d includes fake trailers from Roth (like his \u201cThanksgiving\u201d clip from 2007\u2019s \u201cGrindhouse\u201d) as well as a post-screening mini-making of documentary shot in Begos\u2019 apartment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was blending the line between being a distributor and a director and presenting and on camera,\u201d Roth says. \u201cI realized how important it is to talk to the theater chains so they see how much you care about their business. I know filmmakers care by the virtue of making the movies, but if you\u2019re an actor or a director or producer and you want them to give you front-and-center treatment, you\u2019d be smart to sit down with them. I didn\u2019t have those relations. But we couldn\u2019t believe how many people wanted to sit down with me. \u2018These are all the movies I\u2019m going to make.\u2019 And then they went, \u2018This is awesome. If you give us these movies, we\u2019ll give you great treatment.\u2019 I will live and die by theaters \u2014\u00a0hopefully live \u2014\u00a0and people will come out and see you. We live to fight another day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond the possibility of box office success, Roth wants to help support the careers of ambitious young filmmakers. He cites the poster of his 2006 film \u201cHostel\u201d \u2014\u00a0which was emblazoned with \u201cQuentin Tarantino Presents\u201d at the top \u2014\u00a0as a major turning point in his career.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cQuentin putting his name on \u2018Hostel\u2019 was like the most popular kid in high school being like, \u2018Hey, want to ride in my car?\u2019 Then you\u2019re in the front seat,\u201d Roth says. \u201cEveryone\u2019s nice to you because you suddenly you have the stamp of approval from the coolest kid in school. It\u2019s great to be in a position to do that for the next wave. I want to see more movies from these people, so as much as I want them to succeed, I want them in a position where they can go and make more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the \u201cJimmy & Stiggs\u201d trailer below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli Roth has spent decades in the entertainment industry, but he\u2019s still chasing the high of telling his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,32456,134,56176,344,56177],"class_list":{"0":"post-71696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-eli-roth","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jimmy-and-stiggs","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-the-horror-section"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}