Fresh off his grand return to the family genre with Netflix’s We Can Be Heroes, Robert Rodriguez is working on a reboot of his beloved Spy Kids franchise. Deadline reported this Tuesday that the iconic filmmaker is partnering up with Skydance Media and Spyglass Media Group for the project. As with all the four previous installments in the series, Rodriguez will write and direct the film.
Plot details are currently thin on the ground, but Deadline notes that Spy Kids 5 will “revolve around the activities of a multicultural family.” The original trilogy starred Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara as the Cortezes, while 2011’s Spy Kids: All The Time in the World focused on Jessica Alba as Banderas’ onscreen sister and her family. It’s unclear right now, though, whether the new characters will have any connection to the Cortez clan or not.
Spyglass owns the Spy Kids IP and it was Skydance who came to them with an idea to collaborate on refreshing the brand. So this time around, Skydance will serve as the lead studio and oversee development, while Spyglass’ Gary Barber and Peter Oillataguerre will executive produce. Skydance is on a role recently, too, following their hit Netflix productions The Old Guard and 6 Underground. Meanwhile, Spyglass has just completed filming on their Scream reboot.
And as for Rodriguez, he recently wrapped Ben Affleck thriller Hypnotiq and is set to helm We Can Be Heroes 2 for Netflix. It seems like Skydance and Spyglass are looking to drop the new Spy Kids in cinemas, but it would be interesting if it landed on the streamer instead, and maybe even linked into Rodriguez’s Heroes–verse – which already crossed over with The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.Â
But with a $535 million worldwide gross for the four films so far put together, a theatrical release might be too tempting to pass up. In any case, stay tuned for more on the Spy Kids reboot as it comes in.
