Sin City DVD arrives on Aug. 16
During a round table interview with reporters about the upcoming release of Sin City on DVD, director Robert Rodriguez also talked about his friend and fellow director Quentin Tarantino, directing television and just whether he is really attached to direct a new version of everyone’s favorite barbarian - Conan
Rodriguez also shed some light on a special edition DVD of Spy Kids that is in the works and the upcoming DVD release of the Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, and if he is really finished with the El Mariachi franchise.
RR: I think we have an enthusiasm for the material. We’ve got our own approach to it but we borrow from each other all the time. He likes to learn from me things that I’m doing and vice versa.
RR: (continued) I’m doing an exploitation movie with Quentin (Tarantino) a double feature called Grind House. There will be a lot of location stuff on that. We shoot it really fast because it’s supposed to be like an old 70’s drive-in type movie where you have to shoot it quick.
Q: When will you start that?
RR: As soon as we finish the script. I’m at his house now writing it. We’re writing our scripts, so probably in the Fall.
Q: Are you writing your scripts for Grind House completely separately since you’re doing two separate movies?
RR: Yeah, because they are two different movies. He reads and acts out his stuff and I show him the stuff that I do.
Q: Any themes?
RR: Nah, we each did our own thing. I’ve got probably the best character I’ve ever come up with in mine, so I’m excited. They’re separate movies but it’s like seeing a double feature.
Q: So do you have to pay each other a dollar?
Tarantino (left) and Rodriguez work on Sin City
RR: Yeah, exactly! That’s a good idea. That will keep the budget down. I’m going to DP his movie. He wants to shoot in Austin. He loved shooting Sin City. “I’m coming down there! Let’s make a movie!”
Q: Is it easier for you to work independently outside the studio system when you’ve got a guy like Quentin who you can bounce ideas [off of] and you approach the material the same way?
RR: Well that one is the one I was thinking of doing before I did Sin City. I had the idea to do a double feature. I kind of forgot about it. I had this old double feature poster that had two movie posters on the same poster saying: “Two Hot Rod flicks together! Dragster Girl and Rock All Night!” or something like that. I thought: ‘Ah that’s cool. I should do something like that.” [They’re] truncated features, each one is like an hour.
RR: (continued) I forgot about it and went to Quentin’s house to show him his section of the Sin City DVD and he had the same poster on his floor. “Hey ever thought about doing a double feature? You should do the one and I’ll do the other one.” And he was like: “Oh Fuck yeah! We’ll call it Grind House!” And I said: “And we’ll do fake trailers in between for movies that don’t exist!” We’re just having so much fun.<!--page-->
Shark Boy and Lava Girl are coming to DVD Sept. 20
Q: Is there a studio attached to it so far?RR: It will be the new Weinstein Company.
Q: What’s the basic plot of your half?
RR: I can’t say but it’s got some really cool…I’m so excited for it. It’s got some really good stuff.
Q: What’s the basic plot if Quentin’s half?
RR: I can’t say…
Q: Whose is going to be more violent?
RR: I can’t even say, I don’t know. It depends. Mine will probably be more violent.
Q: Quentin’s done some TV. Do you ever see yourself doing some TV directing?
RR: Um, I don’t know. I might direct The George Lopez show for George, just because it sounds like fun.
Q: Would you step in and try to stay true to the show so far or would you, like Quentin did with CSI, take it in a whole different direction, definitely put your stamp on it.
RR: Oh you’d know I was there. George is jumping over a couch [firing two guns].
Q: Quentin always cameos in his own movies. Is he going to cameo in Grind House?
RR: He said that if I have a part for him he’d love to do it. He loved what he did on Dust Till Dawn.
Q: So are you going to write him one?
Rodriguez jokes he has thought about a PSP game for the “Man With No Eyes”
RR: I have to finish writing the script first then I’ll go and say: “let’s see if any of these guys are for you.” I wrote the Danny Trejo part in Once Upon a Time in Mexico part for him to play. He was going to play the Mexican guy. That’s what I came up with that line: “are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can’t?” So that he could say “I’m a Mexi-can.” But he couldn’t do it. He was doing Kill Bill so Danny did it. But originally that was supposed to be Quentin.
Q: Now your name was attached in the past to some big franchise in the past, like the whole Conan thing.
RR: Conan, Princes of Mars… It’s hard to do the studio pictures now that I’m out of the DGA. Because if they develop or control the project, I couldn’t do it because I’m not in the DGA. So I stick to my own original material like Grind House and Sin City.
Q: Is that (not being part of the DGA) more creative you find doing that?
RR: Yeah, they are. You end up having to create your own movies, your own franchises. That’s cool. You can make Spy Kids and Once Upon a Time In Mexico instead of doing a James Bond movie. You make your own franchise that you own and control instead of making a studio film.
A special edition of Spy Kids is coming to DVD
Q: When are you going to get around to doing a proper special edition of the first Spy Kids?RR: We’re doing that right now. I think that comes out at Christmas (although no dates have been released). I just did the commentaries for it. We shot a whole bunch of new interviews with the kids and the actors. I’ve got all the deleted scenes and things that never made it to the Special Edition.
Q: Are you done with that franchise?
RR: We might do an animated, straight to DVD thing. That would be it though. We couldn’t do a live action thing because [the kids] are too big.<!--page-->
Shark Boy and Lava Girl is Rodriguez latest adventure
Q: For Shark Boy, did your son come on set at all?RR: Oh yeah. They were schooled there with the other kids so they would come in. And they’re in the movie, they act in it and they’d come look at the dailies. And while I was editing they’d come and we’d try different stuff.
Q: Did he ever go above you and start directing?
RR: He did ask for a couple of scenes that got cut. I was like: “Ooh, I cut that a long time ago because I run out of money.” I felt like such a bum.
Q: What’s the film school going to be for Shark Boy and Lava Girl DVD?
RR: It’s actually called “Creating Shark Boy and Lava Girl with Racer Max.” It has all this footage that I’d taken over the years of my son since he was little: his fascination with sharks, (he always loved sharks), showing him conceptualizing the movie, showing me first drawings of the bad guy, Shark boy and Lava Girl, acting out certain sequences as he was coming up with them. I inter-cut that with the final movie and you see how close it is.
RR: (continued) And there’s the one where we’re in the pool (we come up with a lot of ideas in the pool) I’d just video tape to record our ideas because the pen kept getting the paper all wet. So I just recorded it because it was easier. He was just coming up with ideas in the pool, real time; and I’d inter-cut that with the final picture. I think that will inspire a lot of little kids and parents to draw and make home movies together because you see how fun it is and how close it makes you.
Q: Do you have a Cooking School for that one?
RR: We were going to do Cooking School for that one but we didn’t finish it in time. We make these chocolate chip volcano cookies that have peanut butter chips, white vanilla, all kinds…they’re just full of shit. They’re just so good but they’re like sugar overload.
Q: Do you have outtakes or deleted scenes for Shark Boy?
RR: A couple of outtakes that are really funny and we talk about them. And also the commentary it doesn’t credit him, but if you listen to the commentary about half-way through my son comes in and I say: “Come sit down!” And he does commentary with me for the rest of the time.
Q: How was that experience?
Rodriguez never believed where El Mariachi would take him
RR: It was hilarious. He said some really funny stuff.
Q: What’s going on with the El Mariachi franchise? Is anything else going on there?
RR: Uh no, not unless they come and say: “Hey, we want another one! The Man with No Eyes!”
Q: If they would, do you think you’d bring Johnny back?
RR: I thought about doing a PSP game that would follow that character. That would be cool: Once Upon a Time in Mexico video game for PSP. The Man With No Eyes could be a blind gunfighter.
Q: When you did El Mariachi, did you ever imagine you’d be running your own studio or calling the shots?
RR: Never. I didn’t think that movie was ever going to be seen. I had no aspirations at all.
Q: Was it a dream of yours at the time to go from there to where you are now?
RR: I never would have dreamt that. I thought: “Someone is making straight to video action movies in Mexico? They want me to direct one and spend $30,000 on it? That means they must sell them for $40,000 or $50,000. Shit I can do that. Hell I make them for under five grand and I’ll be rich! I’ll just do that for a living; make Mexican exploitation movies in Spanish for the video market. I’ll never have a real job. It’ll be great!” I had real small goals.
Q: So when you started to become successful at what point did you start dreaming bigger and say: “Well now we can build our own studio?”
RR: It was all gradual. We just ended up renting this studio space at an old airport hanger. It looked like they weren’t going to take it away from us. So we kept adding on to it. A couple years ago we put props and movie posters up and painted it. “Shit this looks like a real studio.” Francis Ford Coppola came down and saw it and was like: “This was my dream for Zoetrope!” “Shit I’ve got a Zoetrope.” It kind of just gradually appeared. Right now it’s a cool place. People come, they make a movies, experimental movies.
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