Get the latest gossip

Robert Rodriguez Explains How a 1995 Failure Led to Sin City and Spy Kids

Robert Rodriguez explains to Joe Rogan how a box office failure led to the success of Spy Kids and Sin City.

Rodriguez is highly sought for indie filmmaking advice because of El Mariachi, a film he initially made in hopes of cracking the low-budget Mexican home video market. A former cartoonist at the University of Texas at Austin, who was best known at the time for the hit 1991 festival short “Bedhead,” he earned the money to make El Mariachi by taking part in medical studies, and shot it extremely efficiently in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila. Four Rooms came out in 1995, and 30 years later remains an intriguing mid-90s curiosity thanks to the fascinating assemblage of talent: Tarantino and Rodriguez each direct a segment, as do Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell.

Get the Android app