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Robert Rodríguez (born June 20, 1968) is a Mexican-American film director. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, USA and attended the University of Texas at Austin. He is famous and notorious for shooting blockbuster movies with ultra-low budget.
Rodríguez debuted with the short film Bedhead and then 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, which inspired legions of hopeful filmmakers, arguably only a fraction of whom were as talented as Rodríguez, to pick up cameras and make no-budget movies.
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.
In 2001, Rodríguez enjoyed his first $100-million 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.
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 because Miller had no actual experience as a film director. Rodríguez resigned from the DGA, because "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. Rodríguez had already signed on and had been announced as director of that film, planning to begin filming soon after completing Sin City.
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-seven year-old son, Racer, who has been given credit for the screenplay.
Filmography
- Sin City 2 (in pre-production; scheduled for 2006 release)
- The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D (2005)
- Sin City (co-directed with Frank Miller, and "special guest director" Quentin Tarantino; 2005)
- Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
- Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
- Spy Kids (2001)
- The Faculty (1998)
- From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
- Four Rooms ("The Misbehavers" segment, 1995)
- Desperado (1995)
- El Mariachi (1992)