One-man film studio Robert Rodriguez is currently doing the promo rounds for the forth instalment of his Spy Kids series (really Robert, really?) and had this to say to We Got This Covered about work on his long-awaited sequel to the adaptation of the famed Frank Miller graphic novel series, and the follow-up to his Grindhouse-inspired effort from last year:
“ Sin City 2 is going good, we’re just finishing the script for that, we already got the money. We have everything we need so we can just start shooting as soon as we get the pages. And it’s the same thing for Machete 2. We’ve already got the budget, just waiting for the script. As soon as we’re finished writing we get to start the shoot.”
All this really begs the question, is Rodriguez planning on shooting anything in the near future which isn’t based on any of his past projects?
One thing which can be said about the director is that he isn’t adverse to wheeling out interesting gimmicks and marketing ploys to try and inject new life into those rehashes. The third Spy Kids film used 3D many years before James Cameron unleashed it on the cinema-going population, and Spy Kids: All The Time In The World is billed as being filmed in “4D Aromascope” (essentially, that old-school process which allows people to smell odors and aromas from the film via scratch & sniff cards).
Fans who were hoping the director might embark on something fresh and new, may groan at this news, but the fact is he’s a sound investment for Hollywood. This new Spy Kids adventure (which, incidentally, features the voice of Ricky Gervias as a talking dog) was made for the relatively smallish sum of $40 million (particularly restrained for a forth film in a popular series) and his next two sequels will undoubtedly follow a similar, modest budgetary path.
So its good news for the cost conscious studios and bad news for those out there who are still waiting on Rodriguez to fulfil his prophesy of being the man to revolutionise the film industry. Or maybe he has already?
