David O. Russell Reveals He Wrote A Horror Movie That Eli Roth Might Direct

As David O. Russell himself admits in yesterday’s THR 50-minute directors roundtable (watch it here), his post-“I Heart Huckabees” period (which included the still-unreleased “Nailed,” which recently got an MPAA rating) was a fallow period as a director (he’s called ‘Huckabees’ his least favorite film). But unlike some other filmmakers that take on works for hire or direct commercials to meet ends, Russell is also a writer. While he wasn’t directing, the period was an extremely fertile time for him as screenwriter and he penned the comedies like “Grackle,” “Aaron & Sara“ (which is getting made by another group of filmmakers), “The H-Man Cometh” and “Silver Linings Playbook“ (the latter of which got made obviously, and was a massive success). Even as 2010’s “The Fighter” was getting made, he had penned several more screenplays, both personal works and works for hire like “Pride & Prejudice & Zombies” and “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune“ (which he flirted with directing). And that’s all we can basically remember, though he did also flirt with directing several additional projects during this time, including  “Old St.Louis” (which had Vince Vaughn attached).

But Russell has revealed he wrote two more screenplays during this time, if you can believe it, in genres you might not expect. During the THR roundtable, the director noted, “I wrote a couple of things that someone might make, Eli Roth may actually do one, I wrote a horror a few years ago.” It’s a pairing we would never have expected in a million years, and while we’re curious what a David O. Russell horror movie might be like, he’s not saying too much as he realizes in someone else’s hands it’ll probably take a slightly different path.

“Well it’ll be coupled with Eli Roth, that’s exciting to me. Cause I had to write to support myself. So I wrote a horror for producer Colleen Camp a horror film that I thought was interesting. And Eli thinks its interesting, I think he’s going to make it more interesting,” he said. “It’s emotional, it’s also… we’ll see. It’s also…I don’t wanna say anything more, I’ll let Eli talk about it.”

Who is Colleen Camp? She’s actually mostly an actress — she has a small role in “American Hustle” — but among her producing credits is Peter Bogdanovich‘s upcoming “Squirrel To The Nuts.” But more intriguingly, Russell adds that he has another script kicking about, one that could be a time travel movie (though he cuts himself off before fully explaining).

“I also wrote a supernatural… sort of a time thing, that again is out of my genre. You would probably be better at it than me,” he said pointing to Alfonso Cuaron.

Clearly, nothing is solidified with these scripts yet, but hopefully someone in Hollywood realizes that a Russell penned horror or supernatural movie could be something potentially truly special.