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Robert Rodriguez: El Mariachi
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Texas native Robert Rodriguez shot to fame in the early '90s as the man who made a movie for $7,000. Intended as a practice film for the Spanish-language direct-to-video market, El Mariachi became an art-house hit. Though crudely made, it displayed a breathless joy that continued through each of Rodriguez's subsequent films. After making the B-movie homage Roadracers for cable, he returned to the big screen with the El Mariachi remake/sequel Desperado, starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, who became regulars in Rodriguez's films. After contributing a segment to the little-loved indie anthology Four Rooms, Rodriguez collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on the vampire movie From Dusk Till Dawn, then directed The Faculty, a Kevin Williamson-scripted high-school variation on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Last year, Rodriguez scored his biggest hit to date with Spy Kids.
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Robert Rodriguez has become a legend for scores of young indie filmmakers, a symbol of the possibility of success in the scary world of American cinema. Rodriguez was fascinated by film as a child, and began making short films with his siblings while growing up in San Antonio, Texas. He went on to attend the University of Texas, where his grades weren’t good enough to earn him a spot in the film program, and towards the end of his studies he won a local film contest for his short “Bedhead”. The attention from that film got him into the aforementioned film department, and after graduating he quickly shot and produced his first feature, the Spanish-language actioner “El Mariachi”.
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With $7,000 and guts to spare, Robert Rodriguez made the movie El Mariachi (1992), an action western that made him a star at the Sundance Film Festival and got him a deal with Columbia Pictures. Since then he has established himself as a filmmaker who can deliver mainstream successes from outside of Hollywood (he has a studio near Austin, Texas). By the end of the 1990s he was famous for inventive movies with over-the-top violence: He made Desperado (1995), a sequel to El Mariachi that made American celebrities of Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek); he directed From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), one of George Clooney's early starring roles (written by and co-starring Rodriguez's pal Quentin Tarantino); and he directed the teen horror flick The Faculty (1998, with Elijah Wood and Usher). He then surprised audiences and struck gold with a trio of family movies, Spy Kids (2001), Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003, all starring Banderas). The success of those movies allowed Rodriguez to build studios near his home in Texas, where he made the digitally-enhanced version of Frank Miller's Sin City (2005, starring Jessica Alba). For the 2007 Grindhouse project he did with Tarantino, Rodriguez directed Planet Terror, a zombie invasion movie starring Rose McGowan.
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Robert Anthony Rodriguez was born on June 20, 1968 in San Antonio, Texas. Rodriguez got started in filmmaking when he was only seven after his dad bought a VCR and camcorder, which he used to film his brothers and sisters with. In high school, Rodriguez was commissioned to videotape the school's football games, but he was fired from the position for making them too cinematic. The first major film he directed was the indie El Mariachi in 1992, which he made for $7,000. Full Biography
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Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror, Sin City, Spy Kids, El Mariachi) will direct Barbarella, a new motion picture adaptation of the classic science-fiction comic book series, it was announced today by producers Dino and Martha De Laurentiis. Universal Pictures will distribute the film, which will be released worldwide in 2008.
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The film was El Mariachi (1993), which Rodriguez wrote, directed, photographed, edited and sound-recorded - for $7,000. While shopping it to the video market, Rodriguez signed with a powerful agent at ICM. Columbia Pictures then bought the rights and signed Rodriguez to a two-year writing and directing deal. El Mariachi went on to win the coveted Audience Award for best dramatic film at the Sundance Film Festival, and was honored at the Berlin, Munich, Edinburgh, Deauville and Yubari (Japan) festivals. El Mariachi became the lowest budget movie ever released by a major studio and the first American film released in Spanish. Rodriguez wrote about these experiences in Rebel Without a Crew , a book published by Dutton Press.
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