One of the most gruesome movies ever is getting a surprise TV reboot

In another unexpected move, it is also set to star a recent Oscar nominee.

And in another unexpected move, a recently Oscar-nominated actor is said to have already signed on to the project.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers) has closed a deal to star in the Hostel show which is currently in development but is being described as a “reinvention” of the franchise and as an “elevated thriller”.

The outlet also states that Roth will be returning as a writer and director for the series.

The original Hostel was first released in 2005 and centred around around a group of American tourists in Slovakia who get held captive one-by-one by an organisation that allows people to torture and kill others.

Written and directed by Roth, it was a box office hit despite becoming notorious for its levels of violence.

Roth also helmed another gory sequel to Hostel in 2007, before a third film in the franchise was released straight-to-DVD in 2011 without the director’s involvement.

Paul Giamatti is the most famous actor to have joined the franchise to date and despite not being well-known for horror films, his casting in the project seems to have been a long time coming.

In a 2013 interview with Entertainment Weekly, the Oscar nominee revealed he met Roth while the original Hostel was being made.

“Eli was shooting Hostel in Prague and I was shooting The Illusionist and I met him. We talked about me actually killing somebody in that movie but it never panned out,” he explained.

While on the awards circuit for The Holdovers recently, meanwhile, Giamatti told Variety that he wants to work more in the horror genre.

The Hostel TV series has not been handed a release date, with The Hollywood Reporter stating that it does not yet have a distributor.

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