CraveOnline: Why did you decide to show the Machete trailer in front and not with all the others in the middle?
Robert Rodriguez: I'd always done it that way since that was my trailer. I wanted to start the movie experience with a trailer because, and you didn't get to see it this way, if you're watching it in a regular theater, you're going to see all the sanitized MPAA regular trailers, and suddenly our movie will start. And there's only one chance you have to pull that gag where suddenly the Machete trailer will come on and there's nudity and there's extreme violence. You're like, “Wait, what?” That's how trailers used to play. They used to play with all that stuff in them. The trailers in the '70s were like that. That immediately propels you into our world and then you go into the movie.
CraveOnline: How much did the Weinsteins want you to release these as two separate movies?
Robert Rodriguez: There was talk about it when we were originally supposed to make a December date. Then we were like, “There's no way in hell we're going to make December.” Then when they moved it to April, that talk kind of went away. We knew in some international territories, they were like, “We don't even know what a double feature is. We want the movies separate.” So we thought well, it's an American experience to have a double feature. Let's keep it here in the English speaking foreign countries, and then in some countries where they just want it separate, we'll do that but here it was important to keep it together.
CraveOnline: Doing it in the Grindhouse style, how many of those continuity problems were planned or just things you found in editing?
Robert Rodriguez: In other words, how much of it is really intentional, how much of it is just bad filmmaking? You'll never know. But we came into problems like that, I would go, “Wow, that doesn't quite work, does it? But maybe people will think it's intentional.” I did some things, when I was editing the end sequence and Earl McGraw is pumping Josh Brolin full of lead with a six shooter, I'm like he's got to shoot seven times. So you count, he shoots him seven times.
CraveOnline: How did it feel going back to shooting on location and set after all your green screen movies?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, I do that from time to time. I jump back and forth, like Once Upon a Time in Mexico or the Spy Kids movies except for part three, that was all green screen. And I like jumping back and forth between the control you have on the studio green screen set and then something like this which is just wild and crazy out in the streets and shooting all night. That's fun too.
CraveOnline: You work fast but Quentin likes to take his time. How did you keep him on schedule?
Robert Rodriguez: I shoot really fast for what we had to do because we just had a lot of action. I had to shoot fast in order to keep my budget lower because of all the special effects and all that. Since his was mostly dialogue, he doesn't have to shoot it that quick. He can concentrate more on getting those performances where since I'm having, if you look at how much stuff my movie has, it's just so jam packed with production value. The only way to afford that is if I shoot quick so I have to make myself shoot faster if I want to have all those bells and whistles.
CraveOnline: Would it be possible to have a DVD version without the scratches?
Robert Rodriguez: I think there might be a version at some point that is “newly discovered negative, fully restored digitally” so there's no scratches on it but yeah, I think the first batch that goes out will be with the aging process on it.
CraveOnline: Where did you get the idea for a gun leg?
Robert Rodriguez: I had originally written the character where she lost her leg and then she got a wooden stick in there for a leg. I was driving in traffic trying to think of a central image I could have for my movie that was strong enough to be on a poster, an exploitation type poster. I was trying to think, if I made a trailer for Planet Terror, what would be in the trailer? I don't really have a really strong trailer image and I really have to jack up the idea some more. I was just stumped because I had just written the Machete trailer and that had a lot of great things in it. But the Planet Terror one was still pretty straightforward until, I don't know, it was a flash. I was stuck in traffic, I just suddenly saw Rose McGowan kicking her leg around with a machine gun on it and getting to do roundhouse kicks and the gun firing the whole time. I drew it furiously while I was driving in a little notepad and I just thought that was going to be the central image for the movie.
CraveOnline: That’s so outrageous. Are filmmakers too stuck on realism now?
Robert Rodriguez: Well, I had to think really far to get there. I mean, I showed it to Jim Cameron and he just went, “Oh my God, that's like unbridled moviemaking from the d. It makes sense the moment you're watching it and that's it.” That was a good comment for it because it just seemed, it's just its own waking dream going on when you're watching it.
CraveOnline: Will you expand Machete to a feature?
Robert Rodrigeuz: I'd love to. I've been writing this script since 1994 that I was very fond of for Danny Trejo. When Quentin first mentioned us doing fake trailers, I thought, “Oh, well, I've got one I've been wanting to do forever. We should do the trailer and if people like it, we could do a feature.” And people really exploded with applause and laughter last night so I think we might very well go and do it. Danny calls me every day practically asking if we're going to do it, he's so excited about it.
CraveOnline: You’re doing your own thing, how do you make sure to still please the audience?
Robert Rodriguez: Usually, I'm just pleasing myself and I have very similar tastes I think to an audience, what that core audience really likes. If I'm excited about it, I'm pretty sure an audience is going to enjoy it. If I'm bored with an idea, you can bet they're going to be asleep. So I try to only do things that I'm fairly excited about. Even if they don't get it at first, I think they'll get discovered at some point as being at least trying something new. But I'm pretty much really not excited about doing anything unless I get really, really into it.
CraveOnline: Is that just lucky you found audience in tune with your tastes?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, I think it's very fortunate. A friend of mine who works for me came up and said, “Yeah, you know what? I think you and Quentin are about the only guys making cool cinema.” He coined “cool cinema.” I guess that was true, that kind of cinema that plays to that core audience, is the kind of thing we just gravitate towards naturally.
CraveOnline: Haven’t you been making Grindhouse movies since the beginning?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, I've been making at some point or another, always some kind of exploitation film, and complete fantasy films actually is really how I would probably categorize it. Everything I've done has always been my own made up world with its own rules and its own made up stories.
CraveOnline: Is this double feature kind of a more honed and refined version of Four Rooms where you did short stories?
Robert Rodriguez: That was more what I did on Sin City but instead, I did all the stories. I really thought the Four Rooms story idea could still work but if one director did all the stories, it would be more unified. I tried it again in Sin City and kind of used Four Rooms as the model. For this one, it's not really like a multiple storytelling. It's really two distinct different features just put together as a double feature.
CraveOnline: Got any casting updates on Sin City 2?
Robert Rodriguez: Noooo. Not at all. As soon as I'm done with this, then I'll be able to refocus and look at what I'm going to do next.
CraveOnline: Any chance that Frank would direct on his own?
Robert Rodrigeuz: Oh, absolutely. I think he wants to do a couple more projects before he'd want to strike out completely on his own, but I think he's almost ready.
CraveOnline: Is the next one just one story?
Robert Rodriguez: It's mainly based on Dame to Kill For and a few other surprises thrown in.
CraveOnline: Could you license Grindhouse to other filmmakers to do double features?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, some other filmmakers could probably do some double features if there were ideas that we liked for us, do 'em under the Grindhouse banner. That would be good. It's got a lot of possibilities.
CraveOnline: Was Planet Terror back to the raw style you started out with?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, we'd be shooting really quick and trying to get everything as perfect as we can and just before we'd start a take, somebody would verily say, “Oh wait, we can see the light back there.” I'd say, “Oh, it's a Grindhouse movie, keep shooting. We can't pause for that. No one's going to notice that.” It was very much like Mariachi. It felt a lot of times where it was one take here, one take there and really just getting the more raw feel of it, just to make it more authentic.
CraveOnline: You and Quentin have been paying homages to other film genres for so long, is there still a new way to do referential movies?
Robert Rodriguez: Partly, you always try to come up with some new twist on it and mine was more an infection that comes back from the war in
CraveOnline: Are any real Grindhouse movies this awesome?
Robert Rodriguez: Oh, the idea was, on paper, when people saw I was doing Sin City, you might think, “Oh, it's kind of a film noir based on those film noirs of the '40s and '50s.” But then you see Sin City and it resembled those movies not at all. It was its own piece. Sort of what we wanted to do here was take the spirit and the idea of the Grindhouses from the '70s but make something completely that seemed like it was from another planet so when people saw it, they'd really enjoy it and go back and try to find movies like it and not be able to find any. So that was sort of the idea.
CraveOnline: What are your favorite Grindhouse movies?
Robert Rodriguez: I think probably Rolling Thunder, White Lightning, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Lucio Fulci's Zombi and John Carpenter's Escape from New York. I think those are the most influential on this movie.
CraveOnline: How will you top this?
Robert Rodriguez: I don't know. I have a couple of ideas for some things that this would help me step into. Once you start doing projects like
CraveOnline: When would you do another family film?
Robert Rodriguez: I don't know. Pretty quick I think. People have been asking me for another one. My kids are getting into the idea of coming up with something with me so I think pretty soon.
