Many thanks to @sergioriveraa for tweeting the link!
La Tercera has a post up on how Knock, Knock and Keanu Reeves starring in it came about. The article is in Spanish and translates well. Here are some of the highlights:
- Roth first saw a tape of Death Games in December. They tried to find the owners of the rights but just came up with companies no longer in existence. Their solution was to add producers who were part of the original project.
- The story was rewritten by Roth, Nicholas Lopez and Guillermo Amoedo. They feel that it is more than a remake and is more like a tribute. Lopez has added that the script was also influenced by Death and Ariel Dorfman.
- The first draft was completed in January and they began contacting Lorenza Izzo, Ignacia Allamand and Ana de Armas for the cast. In February the project still needed funding and a leading man.
- Eli Roth met Cassian Elwes (producer of Dallas Buyers Club) at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. They discussed Knock, Knock and Elwes asked to read it. He liked the script and suggested Keanu Reeves for the male lead and sent a text to Keanu.
- It seems to say that Keanu had passed on 50 of his scripts but liked this one so much that he joined as an executive producer.
Note: From this article, it would appear that Keanu’s stop over in Santiago on the way to Uruguay for Carl RInsch’s wedding in January was just that a stop over for a connecting flight. Remake or tribute, Death Games was a train wreck and unless this script has improved drastically, we are probably taking about another limited release or straight to VOD film. And let me make this clear, nothing would make be happier than to have this film be a raging success proving me wrong. Also, I fail to see how a screenplay can be tooted as an original work when the premise and ideas came from another project.
Note 2: In an earlier post, I wrote the following:
On his way to Uruguay in January for Carl Rinsch’s wedding, El Pais (reference from here) said that Keanu made a stop over in Santiago, Chile. You have to wonder if that was part of the original flight schedule or an intention stop over that was related to this film.
The Uruguay mention in the first note was in connection to the previous post. I have ammended Note 1 for the few who don’t keep up.
Note 3: With respect to my comment on the screen play being tooted as an original play, that goes back to a press release in The Wrap that was also previously reported in an earlier post.
Jeff Snelder wrote a piece for The Wrap on Roth and his new horror movie, Knock, Knock back on February 21. He reports that Roth will direct the original screenplay that he wrote with Nicolas Lopez and Guillermo Amoedo.