Eli Roth to Shoot Transformers/Cloverfield Scale Movie this Fall

“I’m almost done with my new script,” says Eli Roth to MTV. “Yippee” says Brendon to the dog and an episode of Desperate Housewives which is only on by accident.

According to a new interview with the director, he’s planning to shoot n $80 million actioner this fall and then, in the immediate three weeks following, bash out a feature length version of Thanksgiving for $5 million. Those are, I’m sure, figures he just pulled out of the air but they tell the story.

We’ve heard of the sci-fi blockbuster before, when we learned that Roth envisioned it as “PG-13″ but with some extra stuff in standby to make for an unrated DVD, and when he first made the Transformers/Cloverfield comparison. The picture now has a working title, but Roth won’t reveal it yet. He was ready, however, to talk the film up somewhat.

"It’s going to be something that is really fun with lots of mass destruction. I wanted to do something along the lines of Transformers or Cloverfield that was a little more science fiction-based, and with lots of chaos and mass destruction."

When asked what the villain, threat or monster in the film would be, he called on his inner Barnum once more:

"I don’t want to say what yet. Once it gets set up, I will let everyone know. It is not aliens or robots or a virus - it’s a little more grounded. But when people hear it they are going to be like ‘That is going to be insane!’."

There’s no mention in the interview of Trailer Trash, Roth’s proposed compilation of fake movie trailers. He was apparently planning to make most of them himself, with guest directors handling a fair handful and there was supposedly going to be a clever way of providing some kind of overall structure to the film. Previously, Roth said he wanted Trash to be his version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, referring to how absolutely painfully funny it would be.

Studios who want to take on the actioner will also be expected to go for Thanksgiving, with Roth offering them only as an indivisible package. Who could turn down an Eli Roth movie for just $5 million? Especially after he’s described how over-the-top it will be:

"The sickest, bloodiest, most violent slasher movie. I want to make the highest body count slasher film I can."

I think Roth has just found a brilliant way of tempting the suits into stumping up the relatively risky $80 million he’s looking to net in funds for the big, bad, slam-bam piece.