Carla Gugino, Antonio Banderas, Alexa Vega und Daryl Sabara in Spy Kids (2001) © Dimension Films
Those: Deadline
Cult director Robert Rodriguez has quite a curious filmography. On the one hand, there are numerous, rock-hard, blood-soaked adult films like From Dusk Till Dawn, Machete, Desperado or Planet Terror. On the other there are numerous family films such as Spy Kids, The secret of the rainbow stone or the one recently at Netflix published We Can Be Heroes, the loose sequel to his movie The adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D.
Rodriguez first showed in 2001 that he has a knack for imaginative and sometimes very weird children’s films Spy Kids, which immediately became a big box-office hit with nearly $ 150 million in gross. This was followed by two sequels in the two following years, the third film being the one under the title due to the local modest success of the first two Mission 3D was released, with $ 197 million grossing it became Rodriguez’s most successful film until Alita: Battle Angel has replaced him. The third owed it Spy-Kids-Streaking its success mainly with the 3D effect, which was still new at the time.
Rodriguez revived the series in 2011 with the loose sequel Spy Kids 4D – All the time in the world again, which was not only published in 3D, but also with “Aroma-Scope”, a card that offered viewers the same smell of certain scenes during the cinema show, which they had to scratch off. However, hardly anyone was interested in the gimmick and the film series and the film fared significantly worse than its three predecessors.
In total, the four played Spy-Kids-Films make more than half a billion US dollars worldwide and remain Rodriguez’s most successful franchise by far. Netflix has been producing the animation series in collaboration with Rodriguez since 2018 “Spy Kids: Mission Critical”. But now the film series should also get a brand new coat of paint.
Production company Spyglass Media is working with Skydance Media to completely reboot the Spy-Kids-Produce series. Rodriguez returns as the writer and director of the new film, which will take center stage on a multicultural family of spies. Spy Kids is part of several franchises that Spyglass has acquired from Bob and Harvey Weinstein’s Dimension Films. This also includes the rights Hellraiser and Screamthat will soon also get new films.
I have to say that I am with Spy Kids never really befriended, but I was probably older than the target audience when the first film came out. The first two parts I was able to gain something, the third and especially the fourth, however, were terrible.
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