An Interview With Spy Kids Writer and Director Robert Rodriguez
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Robert Rodriguez
(c) Miramax Films
Spy Kids: A Dream Come True
Who says dreams don’t come true. Just ask director, writer and producer Robert Rodriguez. His new movie Spy Kids in enjoying the number one box office spot for the second straight week.
Make no mistake however about Spy Kids success. This overnight box office sensation about two pint-sized secret agent kids has been years in the making. During a recent interview in Philadelphia to promote his new movie, Rodriguez says it was always his dream to making a family action-adventure film. "When you follow your passion," Rodriguez observes, "you’ll work on it night and day. I did that for years."
Rodriguez says he came up with the idea for Spy Kids in 1994 but held off on making the movie because of the special effects he needed to incorporate into the story. "I felt like it was going to be a big movie, effects-wise, and I didn’t have any effects experience back then. I wanted to learn how to do all those things," Rodriguez explained. The creator of Spy Kids claims that ultimately he used some 500 effects shots in the movie, earning him an additional credit at the end of the movie for special effects.
Fueling Rodriguez’s desire to make his movie was what he claimed was a lack of family movies. Calling family films "the neglected genre," Rodriguez said he knew he wanted Spy Kids to be something more than a typical family film. He said he stayed away from the "root canal experience" that family films often times deliver to adults because filmmakers cater to children and forget about the parents sitting in the movie theaters. Rodriguez says he set out to deliver a strong family message at the core of Spy Kids and to make his movie as entertaining and imaginative as possible. He stated that he wanted to restore a more magical element in children’s movies adding that is why "the whole movie feels like a little kid’s creative dream. I really wanted it to make it like a child created this movie."
As one of Hollywood’s youngest and brightest directors, it is hard to believe that Robert Rodriguez’s favorite all-time movie while growing up was Walt Disney Pictures "Escape from Witch Mountain." He also conceded that he liked "Willie Wonka" and "Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang" adding that all three films influenced and inspired him while he was working on Spy Kids.
There is no mistaking the director/writer/producer’s thumbprint on Spy Kids. Besides being inspired by his favorite childhood movie, Rodriguez says many of his ideas for Spy Kids came right out of the pages of his childhood. Rodriguez shares that the "thumb-thumb" characters in Spy Kids are based on a picture he drew when he was 11-years-old. He laughs that he also "got to put all his childhood dreams" into creating the safehouse, the submarine and the plane for the children secret agents in Spy Kids.
The third oldest from a family of ten children, Rodriguez has been making movies since the age of 12. He says he always had an in-house cast and crew around when he made his home movies. Many of his early flicks were action-adventure comedies starring members of his family. It wasn’t until Rodriguez began winning several mini-film festivals that he started dreaming that "it was possible to have a career doing something so fun."
Spy Kids is Rodriguez’s seventh feature film and the second in a five-picture deal with Disney’s Miramax/Dimension Films. Spy Kids marks a departure from Rodriguez’s earlier movies, which are more adult-oriented.
Rodriguez concedes his new movie is also the exception to the rule in modern day filmmaking. The director says instead of following the typical studio business plan, Rodriguez says he utilized a "reverse process" in making Spy Kids. Rodriguez explains "it wasn’t a corporate idea, manufacturing, then find a filmmaker, then make a movie process, like it usually is. It was the reverse where I had an idea for a movie. I started making the movie and we couldn’t pre-sell it to anybody because no one had ever heard of Spy Kids." Rodriguez says it wasn’t until he started making the movie that companies started lining up to back the film. "They all said there is such a lack of this type of thing out there. People are looking for something to latch on to. There really is a drought of fun family-fare. So they all jumped on right away."
Some of the companies that have jumped on the Spy Kids bandwagon are toymaker Trendmasters and fast-food giant McDonalds. Trendmaster has developed the prototype for toys based on the characters and gadgets in the film while McDonalds is in the middle of a Happy Meal promotion where toy gadgets based on the movie are being given away with their popular kids meals.
With having the number one hit movie for the past two weeks, there is no rest for Robert Rodriguez. He is already working on the special edition video and DVD release of Spy Kids. He is also fast at work on a sequel to Spy Kids. Rodriguez confirms that there will be a Spy Kids 2, but it highly unlikely there will be a Spy Kids 3, simply because his young child actors are growing up too quickly.
In making Spy Kids, Rodriguez says he accidentally wrote the sequel. "I had to just take half the script out." He adds, "examining the stuff I pulled out, that’s the whole sequel I was trying to make and jam into the first one." While there is no word on when the sequel could be released, Rodriguez says "the studio green-lit a sequel back in December, when they saw how Spy Kids was turning out. It wasn’t even finished."
As for the reaction Spy Kids has been getting from audiences and the media alike, Rodriguez grins and says his goal was always "to make a great film." Apparently moviegoers of all ages are responding and validating Rodriguez’s assertion that Spy Kids is a great film with the movie projected to earn more than $100 million.
Related Links
- LaughingPlace.com Toon Talk Review of Spy Kids
- Robert Rodriguez Entry in imdb.com
Includes complete film history
Discuss It
-- Posted April 12, 2000
-- Story by Paul Perrello