Hostel TV Series Starring Paul Giamatti in the Works
Hostel is coming to television.
Paul Giamatti has closed a deal to star in a Hostel TV series with the franchise’s Eli Roth, Chris Briggs and Mike Fleiss all returning for the project from Fifth Season, the studio behind Apple’s Severance.
The Hostel show, which is currently in development and does not yet have a platform attached, is described as being a “modern adaptation” and an “elevated thriller” that’s also a “reinvention” of the horror franchise that launched in 2006 and spawned two sequels.
Roth and Briggs will pen the script, with the former set to direct. Roth, Briggs and Fleiss will all executive produce the series.
The original movie revolved around three backpackers as they headed to a Slovak city that promised to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaited them.
Giamatti will star in a key role, with character details under wraps. The casting brings the Oscar-nominated star of The Holdovers into Roth’s orbit since the duo first met during production on the first Hostel film. “Eli was shooting Hostel in Prague and I was shooting The Illusionist and I met him. We talked about me actually killing somebody in that movie but it never panned out,” Giamatti told EW in a 2013 interview.
Roth wrote and directed the first two Hostel films, with Roth, Fleiss and Briggs all exec producing. The original pic grossed $82 million worldwide, with the first sequel adding another $36 million. The third movie was released direct to DVD.
Giamatti is fresh off the award-winning feature The Holdovers, which earned him a Golden Globe as well as multiple other prizes.
Should the Hostel series move forward, it would mark Giamatti’s latest TV foray following his seven-season run on Showtime’s Billions. His TV credits also include HBO’s Too Big to Fail and his Emmy-winning role in the premium cable network’s John Adams. He’s repped by UTA, Kipperman Management and Sloane Offer.
For his part, Roth made his directorial debut in 2002 with Cabin Fever and counts the horror feature Knock Knock among his credits. He has also hosted discovery’s Shark After Dark and produced the Discovery/Travel Channel franchise Eli Roth Presents, featuring The Legion of Exorcists, A Ghost Ruined My Life and My Possessed Pet. Most recently, he wrote, directed and produced the slasher pic Thanksgiving and is prepping its sequel after the film cut up $31.9 million at the domestic box office. He next has Borderlands due in the summer. He’s repped by WME and Goodman Genow.
Fifth season, formerly Endeavor Content, produces series including Apple’s Severance and the upcoming Lady in the Lake and Chief of War, Hulu’s Life & Beth, Nine Perfect Strangers, Max’s Tokyo Vice and Peacock’s Wolf Like Me.
