The trailers and stills have been trickling online; the festival screenings have been going well, and there's even a smartphone game. But in a surprise move, Eli Roth's cannibal holocaust The Green Inferno** has suddenly been pulled from the schedules in the US, where it was due for a wide release on September 5.
A bit of notoriety never hurt any horror film in the long run, but sadly The Green Inferno's woes are nothing to do with its grisly content. The boringly prosaic reasons for the film's - presumably temporary - canning have to do with internal ructions at the financiers Worldview Entertainment.
According to Deadline, Worldview's new CEO Molly Conners has baulked at some of the financial commitments made by her outgoing predecessor Christopher Woodrow, among which was a hefty publicity and advertising spend for Roth's jungle opus. Behind-the-scenes talks are ongoing with current distributor Open Road to try to rectify the situation, but whether a third party will arrive with an advertising budget, or whether a new distributor will step up, remains to be seen.
Roth's tribute to the gonzo Italian likes of Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi sees a group of student activists head deep into the Peruvian jungle and face the threat of being eaten alive at the hands of a hungry indigent tribe. It was made for an estimated $6m, so wouldn't even have to do much business to go into profit. Given Roth's high profile and the fact that advance word on the film is strong, the decision to drop it is certainly an odd one.
US horror fans will be crossing their fingers that this doesn't turn into another distribution farrago like All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, which sat in American limbo for seven years after the rest of the world saw it in 2006.
We've never had a release date for the film in the UK at all so far, although **The Green Inferno **played in Edinburgh in June and makes its English debut at FrightFest in London on August 22. Will it go straight to DVD otherwise?
Roth is already onto his next project, currently in the editing room with his Keanu Reeves-starring thriller Knock, Knock. That one's pencilled in for release about a year from now.