Robert Rodríguez

Robert Rodríguez (born June 20, 1968) is an American film director. He was born in San Antonio, Texas and attended the University of Texas at Austin. He is known for making profitable, crowd-pleasing independent and studio films with fairly low budgets and fast schedules by Hollywood standards. Rodríguez is of Mexican descent and shoots and produces his films in Texas and Mexico, often casting hispanics as his leads.

Career

Rodríguez grew up shooting action and horror short films on video, and editing on two VCRs. He made his film festival debut with the short film Bedhead, which attracted enough attention to encourage him to seriously attempt a career as a filmmaker. He went on to shoot the action flick El Mariachi in Spanish, inspired by John Woo films. El Mariachi, which was shot for around $7,000 with money partially raised by volunteering in medical research studies, won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and the film, originally intended for the Spanish-language low-budget home-video market, was distributed by Columbia Pictures. Rodríguez described his experiences making the film in his book Rebel Without a Crew. The book and film inspired legions of hopeful filmmakers, to pick up cameras and make no-budget movies. While very few of those hopefuls went on to successful careers, the film and the book are widely considered important touchstones of the independent film movement of the 1990s. Many people realized for the first time that with only a little money and a lot of hard work and talent, it was possible to make a successful and popular film.

Related Topics:
VCR - Film festival - El Mariachi - Spanish - John Woo - Sundance Film Festival - 1992 - Columbia Pictures - Independent film - 1990s

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His next film was Desperado, a sequel to El Mariachi starring Antonio Banderas. The film introduced Salma Hayek to American audiences. He collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on the vampire thriller From Dusk Till Dawn (which would see two sequels, which he co-produced) and with Kevin Williamson on the teen horror sci-fi flick The Faculty.

Related Topics:
Desperado - Antonio Banderas - Salma Hayek - Quentin Tarantino - From Dusk Till Dawn - Sequel - Kevin Williamson - The Faculty

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In 2001, Rodríguez enjoyed his first $100,000,000 (USD) Hollywood hit with Spy Kids, which went on to become a trilogy. A third "mariachi" film also appeared in late 2003, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He operates a production company called Troublemaker Studios, formerly Los Hooligans Productions, after Los Hooligans, a comic strip he wrote and drew at UT.

Related Topics:
2001 - Spy Kids - 2003 - Once Upon a Time in Mexico - Troublemaker Studios - Los Hooligans Productions

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Rodríguez directed Sin City (2005), an adaptation of the Frank Miller Sin City comic books; Quentin Tarantino also directed a scene. During production in 2004, Rodríguez insisted that Miller receive a "co-director" credit with him because he considered the visual style of Miller's comic art to be just as important as his own in the film. However, the Directors' Guild of America would not allow it, citing that only "legitimate teams" could share the director's credit (i.e. the Wachowski Brothers). Rodríguez chose to resign from the DGA, stating, "It was easier for me to quietly resign before shooting because otherwise I'd be forced to make compromises I was unwilling to make or set a precedent that might hurt the guild later on." Unfortunately, by resigning from the DGA, Rodríguez was also forced to relinquish his director's seat on the film John Carter of Mars (2006) (at the time "A Princess of Mars" after the book on which it was based) for Paramount Pictures. Rodríguez had already signed on and had been announced as director of that film, planning to begin filming soon after completing Sin City.

Related Topics:
Sin City - Frank Miller - Sin City - Quentin Tarantino - Directors' Guild of America - Wachowski Brothers - John Carter of Mars - 2006 - Paramount Pictures

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Sin City was a critical hit in 2005 as well as a box office success, particularly for a hyperviolent comic book adaptation that did not have name recognition comparable to the X-Men or Spider-Man. Rodríguez is consequently in pre-production for a sequel, which will be based on the Sin City story A Dame To Kill For and is scheduled for release in 2006. He has stated that he is interested in eventually adapting all of Miller's Sin City comic books. Rodríguez also released The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D in 2005, a superhero movie intended for the same younger audiences as his Spy Kids series. Shark Boy & Lava Girl was based on a story written by Rodríguez' then 7 year old son, Racer, who has been given credit for the screenplay.

Related Topics:
X-Men - Spider-Man - The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D

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He has a series of "Ten Minute School" segments, explaing his use of digital cameras and good cheap special effects to make movies profitable and even revealing his recipie for "puerco pilbil" based on the real "cochinita pibil".

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