Everyone can't stop talking about Milo Manheim being cast as Flynn Rider in the live-action Tangled movie, lately. However, it's also created a problem...for Thanksgiving director Eli Roth specifically. That's because while Thanksgiving 2 is an upcoming horror movie we’ve been anticipating since Sony greenlit the sequel in 2023, we're still waiting for it. So, why have we been waiting three years? Well, CinemaBlend had the chance to get an answer from Eli Roth, and now it involves the Tangled remake.
We spoke to Roth at San Diego Comic Con in the lead-up to his latest slasher, Ice Cream Man, premiering on the 2026 movie schedule. However, we had to ask him about his fall-set slasher too. Here’s the latest on Thanksgiving 2 in his words:
Every time we're about to get it ready, the cast gets more famous. Like, Jalen Thomas Brooks is on Off Campus now. And Nell Verlaque just shot her MGM+ show with Kevin Kline, and now she's doing Overcompensating Season 2 with [Thanksgiving's Tomaso Sanelli]. And, [Addison Rae's] world tour just keeps going…Milo Manheim is shooting Tangled.
Whoa, this is pretty wild when you think about it. Back in 2023, when Thanksgiving came out, many of the actors in the slasher were relatively unknown in Hollywood. But ever since, many of their careers have blown up in a big way.
Of course, Milo Manheim is actively filming the Disney remake right now in Spain, and it will reportedly last eight months. That really delays Thanksgiving 2!
Plus, as Roth listed out, the rest of theThanksgiving cast is doing very well too. Jalen Thomas Brooks, who played Bobby, was in one of the most viral new series of the year, Off Campus. Oh, and he’s in The Pitt as well. Nell Verlaque, who played Jessica, just starred in the shows American Classic and Overcompensating. Plus, Addison Rae, aka Gaby, had her first studio album, Addison, come out in 2025, which she toured for most of last year.
That’s a lot of busy schedules to keep track of, especially with one of said stars currently working on a very major blockbuster. But Eli Roth sounds like he’s committed to reuniting his original cast (or what’s left after John Carver’s bloody holiday ambush). As he added:
Like, we all love each other, and everyone's so happy for each other. Now I'm thinking, like, how can I shoot this without everyone together? Can I do this by breaking it down into different pieces? Because you need to get everyone together for a certain amount of the movie. So, I just need to pick like, now. Before I thought, ‘Well, get everyone together for three weeks or a month. Now I'm like, ‘Can I just get everyone together for a week?’
Honestly, it’s a good problem to have, because fans of the cast have only grown, and so will the Thanksgiving franchise. But it’s also causing the filmmaker to think about how he’s going to logistically film the movie. Eli Roth also said this about his now-viral Thanksgiving actors:
You cast them because you think they're incredible even if nobody else has seen it yet. I'm willing to stake my reputation on that person because I know they're great. And then it's like they explode, and you're just so happy for them. So, everybody wants to do it. It's just we gotta figure out scheduling, and I might just have to shoot it in chunks or blocks. We're talking through it now.
It definitely sounds like Thanksgiving 2 is going to happen, but exactly when has a question mark next to it. Hopefully, it can get off the ground quickly once Tangled and all these other projects are done filming. While we wait, check out Eli Roth’s latest slasher full of gore and creative kills, Ice Cream Man. It’s now playing in theaters.
