{"id":5491,"date":"2026-08-04T16:37:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:37:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:37:56","slug":"eli-roth-got-sick-of-studio-notes-and-shrinking-residuals-with-ice-cream-man-hes-going-into-business-for-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5491","title":{"rendered":"Eli Roth Got Sick of Studio Notes and Shrinking Residuals, With \u2018Ice Cream Man\u2019 He\u2019s Going Into Business for Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tWhen Eli Roth was making \u201cBorderlands,\u201d a $120 million adaptation of a popular video game, he felt the movie getting farther and farther away from his punk rock vision.<\/p>\n

Read more Hollywood\u2019s New Leaders: Class of 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs things grow bigger, studios just naturally become more risk averse,\u201d Roth says. \u201cMy nature as a filmmaker is to do the thing that\u2019s left of center, because that\u2019s what has worked for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut to earn a PG-13 rating, studio executives pushed for cuts and tweaks, and the finished product was a disaster, bombing with audiences and critics when it opened in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou got something that belonged to nobody,\u201d Roth says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a kids\u2019 movie, but it\u2019s trying to appeal to everybody. It\u2019s for gamers, but it doesn\u2019t have the violence the gamers want because it can\u2019t be that extreme because it costs too much. You just wind up with a movie that\u2019s neither fish nor fowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s not the case with \u201cIce Cream Man,\u201d which \u2014 love it or hate it<\/em> \u2014 is unabashedly Roth\u2019s vision. The director, who made a name for himself directing gorefests like \u201cHostel\u201d and \u201cThe Green Inferno,\u201d is returning to his ultraviolent roots with the story of children who become homicidal maniacs when they devour frozen treats.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI thought, what if it\u2019s like the Pied Piper, and the ice cream truck music triggers a Pavlovian response?\u201d Roth says. \u201cI had this image of the kids killing their parents and teachers and then eating more and more ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd this time Roth won\u2019t be pressured to tone down the carnage. He\u2019s cut out the studio entirely and gone into business for himself. Roth raised the film\u2019s $5.5 million budget mostly through foreign pre-sales and tax credits (it shot in Canada). He will release the picture via The Horror Section, the independent genre company that Roth founded in 2025. The plan is to distribute two to four horror films annually in theaters, keeping budgets low to preserve creative freedom. After \u201cIce Cream Man\u201d opens on Aug. 7, The Horror Section will release \u201cStiletto,\u201d a slasher film set in strip clubs, in the fall and go into production on \u201cDon\u2019t Go in That House, Bitch!,\u201d a horror film that will team Roth with Snoop Dogg. All of them will get theatrical releases of roughly 45 days.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor \u201cIce Cream Man,\u201d Roth expects to spend a few million dollars on marketing. That\u2019s a fraction of what studios typically shell out to promote films. The production will rely primarily on cheaper digital ads and stunts such as having Roth show up at Comic-Con to hand out sweet delights from a blood-spattered ice cream truck. If the movie makes between $6 million and $8 million theatrically, Roth estimates it will be profitable because it will earn roughly the same amount on home entertainment.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018This Summer Will Be Different\u2019 Netflix Series Adds 6 to Cast as Production Begins<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have set the film up so that the floor is very high,\u201d says Jon Schnaars, The Horror Section\u2019s CEO. \u201cIt really does not need to do a lot domestically for us to be well positioned as a company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMore importantly, Roth gets to control the stories he spins in perpetuity, instead of selling a script and its underlying IP to a studio for a one-time fee.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNovelists who write stories own the underlying rights, but filmmakers who write a screenplay don\u2019t own the underlying rights, and that always felt like an imbalance to me,\u201d Roth says. \u201cStephen King owns all of his creations. Why should I create something and then give away ownership?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s become increasingly important as the economics of moviemaking have shifted in the Netflix era.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDecades ago, the studio owning the movie was fine because there was so much money to be made on home video, and we were all doing great,\u201d Roth says. \u201cDVD was explosive, and then you would get residuals when it went to cable TV. But as the streamers came in, all of a sudden, the residuals were gone. When a movie goes on Netflix, you\u2019re not getting any money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIce Cream Man\u201d will be released without a rating, sparing it from battles with the ratings board over scenes of preteens vivisecting and decapitating grown-ups. That\u2019s a freedom Roth fought for and frequently lost throughout his career.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPart of horror is you\u2019re being distasteful,\u201d Roth says. \u201cAnd for people in studios, it\u2019s hard to be distasteful because they\u2019re making stuff that they want to be celebrated and socially acceptable. And part of what you\u2019re doing by making a good horror movie is you\u2019re being transgressive and you\u2019re pushing the boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Tyriq Withers Takes Off: The \u2018Reminders of Him\u2019 Breakout on Swapping Football for Acting and Overcoming the Loss of His Brother<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eli Roth, was sick of shrinking residuals and studio notes, so he’s releasing ‘Ice Cream Man’ through his new company, The Horror Section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1530,4309,4310],"class_list":["post-5491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-eli-roth","tag-ice-cream-man-2","tag-the-horror-section"],"yoast_head":"\nEli Roth Got Sick of Studio Notes and Shrinking Residuals, With \u2018Ice Cream Man\u2019 He\u2019s Going Into Business for Himself - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5491\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eli Roth Got Sick of Studio Notes and Shrinking Residuals, With \u2018Ice Cream Man\u2019 He\u2019s Going Into Business for Himself - 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