This is the latest milestone on the odd journey of Machete, with the first artwork to the sequel (of the two planned further films) to the ridiculously over the top 2010 Grindhousesque revenge thriller.

While the first film showed that the first film made for a great trailer it’s a little surprising that Robert Rodriguez has two more films in the series in his future, not least the final installment which, while not greenlit as of yet, will exist in trailer form with this new film and is called Machete Kills Again…In Space! Of course he does, but the plot synopsis for this film involves a weapon being launched into space so there’s an obvious way in there.

Machete Kills will be filming in the Spring and no doubt will include the same bevy of odd cameos and bloodsplatter.

Here’s the picture, all the way from Coming Soon, click it to make a big scary face on your computer,

Robert Rodriguez has been in San Diego promoting his new production company, Quick Draw Productions, and two of the things he’s looking to make are the follow-up to Sin City and the two sequels that would make a Machete trilogy, THR report.

The brilliant writer, director, producer, and all-round talented filmmaker has been talking about a Sin City sequel for a while now, and with his new production company starting up, we can hopefully look forward to this much sooner rather than later.

He’s announced that his new company will be partnering with AMD Austin, a hardware company he’s long been working with, whose technology he says,

“force him to stretch creatively to meet the new possibilities.”

It’s almost always good news to hear directors trying to stretch themselves, especially with as talented a director as Rodriguez, and this is definitely good news when it includes his vision for Sin City 2. Rodriguez says that he and Frank Miller will be co-directing the sequel as they did the first film, and that Miller is finishing up the screenplay now,

“which has reverted back to the trio-of-storylines approach of the first movie—“A Dame to Kill For” plus two new stories Miller has devised. Many of the characters from the first film would reappear, and Rodriguez says he doesn’t see scheduling as a problem since in the last one the green screen allowed him to shoot actors in the same scene as much as eight months apart. No one has yet been cast, though the writer-director claims they could shoot it soon and quickly, as early as the fall.”

Though it’s still pretty early days yet, I’m remaining optimistic because Rodriguez sounds optimistic. With his own production company granting him more control of what he wants to make, it could well mean that he and Miller will be able to start filming as and when he sees fit after Miller finishes the script.

Rodriguez also says that the sequel will be in 3D. And whilst that might cause a bit of a sigh for many, the director thinks that the technology will only serve to make the film that much better, saying that it will,

“really enhance the CG-noir landscapes the content uses (the actors are filmed against green screen).”

I think the man is talented enough a filmmaker for people who aren’t that fond of 3D films to grant him more than a bit of trust to bring us an awesome sequel, and if shooting really does begin as early as autumn, then we might well be able to look forward to a second Sin City before long.

Coming next from the writer-director-producer is the fourth Spy Kids film, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D, which stars frequent collaborators Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, and Danny Trejo. And with the new film introducing a new set of kids, if the fourth succeeds, Rodriguez admits that more films in the series could be on the way.

Trejo and Alba most recently worked with Rodriguez on last year’s Machete, and Rodriguez also has sequels in development for that too. The first of two planned sequels has already been written, and hopefully it won’t be long for them to go into production either. Obviously, with Rodriguez helming all of these projects, they can’t really all be done at the same time. But he’s known for firing on all cylinders, non-stop, so expect big things to come from him and Quick Draw Productions over the next few years.

It’s a strange time of life when fake trailers get made into feature length films, yet Machete made good on its Grindhouse origins and Jason Eisener is the man to bring Hobo With a Shotgun violently to life

Casting Rutger Hauer as the titular Hobo was a good idea, and this new poster is another example of the new old style of 21st Grindhouse. If I’m right HWAS will premiere this month at Sundance and I think we’re all hoping the film can live up to its promise.

Here’s a synopsis,

Uncovering the roots of Restoration Comedy to mid 14th century Hamburg was a labour of love for Daniel Lensk, undergraduate and famed croquet player, and on a trip to find an original manuscript which will prove his theories he uncovers a conspiracy far more… Nah. It’s about a Hobo with a Shotgun. Going crazy.

Catch the other posters, set videos and teaser trailer here and look on in wonder at the new poster,

Who had it first? IGN of course.

Guitarist, martial artist, conservationist, writer, producer, animal rights activist and all-round renaissance man Steven Seagal is back in the land of direct-to-video, following his first foray onto the big screen in nearly a decade playing (and rather enjoying himself in the process) the main villain in Robert Rodriguez’s recent feature, Machete.

The film in question is Deadly Crossing – a title with two words which could easily be interchangeable with any of Seagal’s previous features and still fail to offer even a remote clue as to their actual content.

The opening credits instantly bring to mind a US cop TV show, and this is indeed a feature-length episode of a new series called Southern Justice, which has presumably been repackaged as a stand alone film to make a quid or two before the series debuts on a digital channel sometime next year.

It completely rips off those small screen CSI-style programmes too, with it’s reliance on hand-held camera work, flash jump cuts, Dutch angle close-ups and grainy-looking flashbacks, but all these visual tricks add no value whatsoever to proceedings. The majority of these scenes take place at night or in dimly-lit hallways, seemingly to camouflage Seagal’s huge girth and help distract from his perfectly sculptured woollen Ming the Merciless-esque widow’s peak hairpiece.

Seagal is no lone warrior this time around however, as he leads (in the CSI  wise mentor role) a crack unit of plainclothes police to bust Seattle’s drug trade wide open. In terms of plot, that’s pretty much it. Thankfully, the makers have drafted in a two catwalk versions of Cagney & Lacey – sassy broads who have to contend with the day-to-day challenges of sexual discrimination and harassment (which the Seattle police force appear to condone), before winning the respect and approval of their peers. Way to go gals!

For seemingly no reason, the narrative jumps back to the previous 48 hours, mid-film. Was this a script quirk or achieved during post-production when the editor panicked and decided that something was needed to bring viewers out of a state of inertia?

The list goes on and on, but in all honesty, the audience who enjoy this type of movie are unlikely to be concerned about issues like a disjoined narrative or non-existent character arcs. Ultimately, being overly critical towards a DVT Steven Seagal feature is akin to moaning that contestants on the X-Factor don’t meet the required number of octaves to achieve a perfect vocal delivery.

Everyone who has ever seen a film by the tubby ass-kicking one will know exactly what to expect, and fans will be more than satisfied, even though the days when he could physically keep up with the bad guys are long gone, as he now has to resort to popping back behind the wheel of his 4X4 to keep pace.

If anyone does decide to rent this film as a fun Saturday evening distraction (make sure you purchase more than a couple of beers to watch it with, however), in case you were wondering, that is Seagal singing over the opening credits.

**~~~ (2/5)

Robert Rodriguez regular and ex-Folsom prison inmate Danny Trejo (whose lived-in face looks as leathery as his character’s trademark waistcoat) plays the man with the big blades in Tex Mex revenge flick Machete, the director’s return to the big screen following his failed commercial attempt at recreating the Grindhouse experience for a modern audience, and below-par kids effort, Shorts.

We’re in familiar Rodriguez territory here in this tale of an ex-Federale known as Machete who launches a violent campaign of retribution against his former bosses when they brutally murder his wife and leave him for dead. Hired by some unsavoury types to assassinate a senator, he soon realises he’s been set up again and is a cipher involved in the underhanded campaign of a corrupt senator to rid the US of illegal immigrants from the southern border.

An injured Machete escapes the clutches of his enemies (in the film’s most ridiculously over-the-top scene) and enlists the help of a taco street vendor-cum-revolutionary (Michelle Rodriquez) and a sympathetic border patrol agent (Jessica Alba) to help unearth the conspiracy and bring those who have wronged him to justice, or alternatively, attempt to carve them up into human kebabs-sized slices instead.

Rodriguez is actually credited as co-director (he shares the position with long-time assistant editor Ethan Maniquis) although there’s very little evidence here to suggest another filmmaker’s fingerprints on the finished film. This is a shame as the film itself could have done with a fresh approach. Where the likes of Desperado and Dusk Till Dawn were put together with a real sense of fun and inventiveness, Machete feels like Rodriguez is just going through the motions.

For the most part, there’s an unwelcome sense of déjà vu here, and the director’s usual trademarks (the slow-mo fades, the mixture of guns and religious iconography, pounding Mexican rock score) all seem a little tired and worn out this time around. Even the added socio-political subplot and fun Paul Verhoven-esque satirical commercials sprinkled throughout aren’t enough to inject new life into an overly-familiar narrative, which isn’t helped by a slack and uneven pace.

Even the majority of the colourful list of supporting actors fail to make much of an impression. Jeff Fahey is a welcome addition and (rather surprisingly) fellow villain Steven Seagal (wearing what looks to be a bad Pocahontas-type wig and a brown, loose-fitted brown khaki military jacket/maturity gown) gives the most relaxed and fun performance of his career to date, although when you have an overweight, DTV superstar providing a more memorable turn than that of Robert DeNiro (given very little to do here as the gun-tooting senator) you know that something is amiss. Lindsay Lohan looks suitably scuzzy in her role of Fahey’s slutty daughter, but it does make you wonder if she even avoided the make-up trailer all together and just found her own way to the set after a heavy night on the tiles.

Trejo (who has been a regular and welcomed fixture in Rodriguez’s films since 1995’s Desperado) asserts himself quite well in his first lead performance, but he isn’t given much to do and he’s playing a character, the likes of which we’ve seen different variations of in the director’s work numerous times before.

For all its failings, the film does occasionally come alive, and a superbly-staged church shoot-out sequence with Cheech Marin as a gun-tooting padre (set to a rendition of Ave Maria on the soundtrack), plus a effectively nasty slice and dice pre-credit sequence hint at what could have been. The opening truly looks like it has been unearthed in some kind of vault for unseen 70’s exploitation features (further enhanced by the faked distressed film look). This fun visual device soon disappears (much like it did in Grindhouse), and it also seems to take with it the entertaining and sleazy quality which the film could have greatly benefited from.

Although hardened fans may feel that the director has delivered exactly what they were looking for, if you’re expecting a film which pays homage to the genre it’s originated from, yet at the same time, still retains a unique vision (which Death Proof almost managed to do), this is not it. Rodriguez has the resources at his disposal to basically make whatever he wants and Sin City proved that he can still deliver the goods on both a visual and visceral level. Machete feels like a step backwards for a filmmaker who is capable of so much more.

For a film which famously started life as a fake, Gridhouse-esque trailer, maybe it should have stayed in that fun format (with audiences having to use their imaginations to fill in the gaps) instead of striving for feature-length legitimacy.

Sony Pictures Entertainment and Hyde Park International have released a brand new, previously unseen, UK trailer for Machete.

Machete, an expansion of a fake trailer released with Grindhouse in 2007, is co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis.

The film stars Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez and Steven Seagal.

After being betrayed by the organization who hired him, an ex-Federale (Trejo) launches a brutal rampage of revenge against his former boss.

Machete will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on November 26.

Watch the trailer below:

Michelle Rodriguez starring in an action-packed retelling of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane? Look at her welding that huge bazooka on the poster. Check out the heat she’s packing in the teaser trailer!

Wait…hold on a minute. Before you all get excited (like I did) over this Grindhouse-esque action fest re-telling of a classic from movie folklore, let me put an end to your geeky anticipation by revealing that Bleeding Cool has unearthed that this is in fact a fake movie trailer created for a coming-of-age comedy called Blacktino from Aaron Burns.

Oh well. Maybe in time we’ll see a surge in interest of this mock viral, which will inspire the creators to produce a full-length version in a similar fashion to what happened with Machete (which Rodriguez actually co-stars in).

I dare say, it’s been quite a blood fest at the cinema lately.  The Expendables and Piranha 3D had quite enough, but if you go and throw Machete in there too, it’s an all out blood fest extravaganza!

The newest film by Robert Rodriguez opened this past weekend here in the States.  Originally filmed as a faux-trailer for the Grindhouse films, Rodriguez gathered together an unlikely band of well known actors, to film the full length version the fans cried out for.

While working in Mexico as a Federale, Machete is betrayed by his boss as he’s trying to take down a well known drug lord whose reach extends to the organization that Machete is working for.  After his wife and child are murdered, Machete is left for dead.  Turning up in Texas a few years later, Machete is working as a day laborer.  A man comes to hire him but instead of hiring him for day labor, Machete soon learns that he’s been hired to assassinate Senator McLaughlin.  He accepts the job and soon finds himself at the center of another betrayal.  Machete then goes on a mission of his own to clear his name and find out the source and reason for the betrayal.

Machete’s story also deals with immigration, illegal border crossings, an immigrant underground, as well as civilian led border patrol.  The timing of Machete’s release could be a positive thing or a negative thing considering the illegal immigration issue that is taking place in the States at the moment.  Some may focus on a parallel of the films political statement to what’s happening in States, I’m just going to focus on Machete as a film.

The cast of Machete is an interesting mix of new and old.  You’d be hard pressed to find a cast list that reads like this one.  Tarantino has a knack for reigniting the fire of long forgotten actors so it’s not surprising to see that happen with Rodriguez cast choices as well.  Machete stars, in no particular order, Danny Trejo (who is a Rodriguez staple), Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin, Robert DeNiro oh yeah….and Lindsay Lohan.  Having a deep bench cast wise, it’s not unusual for certain roles to suffer.  While I would have liked more Cheech Marin and Don Johnson (a scene together would have been great for those Nash Bridges fans) I was happily surprised at the amount of Jeff Fahey it had.  He played his role as the dead pan businessman type to the hilt.  Each actor fit in nicely with their roles with the exception of Seagal.  I had a hard time with him portraying a drug lord that threw in the occasional Spanish word when he talked.  However on the flip side of that, the type of film this is calls for outrageous casting and the said cast is all in on the joke.  So I’ll give kudos to Seagal for that.  He’s a shell of the Seagal that we all know, but it seems he knows it too.  I felt that Lindsay Lohan was a complete waste of time even if she did pretty much play herself.  I’m still not convinced that she can act and her presence just detracted from everything else that was happening in the film.  Basically she irritated me beyond belief whenever she was on screen.  Danny Trejo however, was a perfect fit.  He just looks like someone you don’t want to meet in a dark alley.  The eyes of steel, the set jaw, the tattoos…all of it screams “Danger!”  I like Danny Trejo a lot and it was nice to see him front and center for once and not in a supporting role.  He carries the film on those broad shoulders and does so very well.

I loved how Rodriguez used the exploitation film style with Machete.  Everything from the scratchy, color saturated film style, to the editing and the angles makes this film feel like it should have been released in the 1970′s.  Decapitations, ridiculous guns and a new use for intestines all lend themselves to this style as well.  And then there is the amount of blood.  The blood spray is gratuitous but expected in a film like this.  If you don’t like blood, don’t see Machete.

One of the other downfalls the film had, aside from Lohan was it’s running time. Clocking in at 105 minutes, it felt a bit more like 120.  There seemed to be big gaps of time between any type of action and during those few dispersed action scenes the film goes a bit stagnant.  A film that’s about a guy named Machete shouldn’t have big gaps of non action.  It would have served the film much better if they tightened things up and cut about 15 minutes.

In the end, even with the political messages that some will agree with, others won’t, Machete is a film that is at times entertaining, other times not.  The style of filming and the action scenes are worth the time, money and effort to see it in the theater but unfortunately the lag time it suffers between those action scenes make it a bit hard to sit still and not notice how long the film seems.

Machete opens in the UK on November 26th.

The new George Clooney vehicle The American has taken the top spot at the US box office this weekend with a total of $16m in revenue, while Robert Rodriguez’s “mexploitation” actioner Machete is in third place, having managed to bring in just over $11m.

Both of these figures are relatively small but as the summer season is over, the large popcorn audience are probably a bit fatigued, plus it’s usually the time of year that Hollywood roll out the smaller films.

Clooney’s film fits more into the arthouse slot (it’s a slow, moody piece from the director of the Joy Division biopic Control) so it’s understandable why it didn’t make the same figures as the “Ocean” films did on their debuts, but it would have been nice to see Machete open a little better.

Similar to the low box office for Scott Pilgrim v.s The World a couple of weeks back, the problem here appears to be that the niche market which is being catered for isn’t quite large enough to really bring in the big figures, but I’m sure it’s a film (like Pilgrim) which will find a huge audience on it’s DVD release.

Sometimes we get lucky.

Sometimes, when the stars are aligned and God is feeling particularly generous, some too-good-to-be-true piece of cinema news will whip round the internet and the holy grail of ensemble casts will be revealed.

Some may say that, this year, it was The Expendables that stole the spotlight. But behind the call to arms for all “real men” to flock from their gyms to the cinema, replacing popcorn with power bars, another unapologetic action ensemble was quietly picking up speed. The Robert Rodriguez directed film is a throwback to the exploitation movies of the seventies, rather than the eighties action hero heyday. Unlike Stallone’s film, it deals with a powerful and touchy subject, that of immigration, in an innovative and unique way.

To do this, Rodriguez created a brutal Mexican vigilante to star in a film ripped straight from a time before political correctness, designed to disgust (or delight, depending on your level of squeamishness) all in his blood-splattered path. Move over, Sly; Rodriguez and jobbing actor Danny Trejo have crafted the ultimate exploitative action film in Machete. We invite you to meet the team of A-list talent in the film industry’s most expensive practical joke of the year.

Robert Rodriguez
Director, producer, co-writer – Machete is the brainchild of Rodriguez. We were first introduced to his deadly day-labourer through a hilarious fake trailer in front of his Grindhouse flick, Planet Terror. It was no throwaway joke, either; Rodriguez had been itching to use the character for a long time, and the film is perfectly tailored to the director’s talents.

Sin City proved he can work with high-profile ensembles, while even Spy Kids (featuring Danny Trejo as another character named Machete) demonstrated his flair for OTT action. All the evidence so far points to the fact that he can deliver the gore-filled goods with this film.

Danny Trejo
Danny Trejo is just one of those guys that never got a break. With a career that ranged from Desperate Housewives to Anchorman to Predators, his small bit parts have gradually made him a recognisable face as Hollywood’s go-to stereotypical Mexican.

As such, he is the perfect candidate to play the double-crossed assassin who knows the score, gets the women and kills the bad guys. However, this is both a blessing and a curse; having never been a lead, the film rests squarely on Trejo’s broad shoulders. Let’s just hope he can handle it.

Jessica Alba
As one of the hottest women in film, no exploitation movie is complete without her, surely?

Like Sin City, she seems to be on comfortable ground as a ballsy, unapologetic sex object, but she is hopefully capable of giving a more complex performance.

Robert De Niro
Easily the actor with the highest credentials on the list, and consequently the one with the most to lose.

On the other hand, his very presence gives the film an air of legitimacy as a corrupt, racist senator. Meet the Fockers has demonstrated he isn’t afraid of self-mockery, so hope and pray that he puts his dignity to one side and outrageously ramps up the cheese factor, delivering the goods as only De Niro can.

Lindsey Lohan
See Jessica Alba, above.

As the blatantly objectified “nun with a gun”, Lohan is on home ground. Her recognisable fame for reasons outside the industry could always be a blessing in disguise, bringing the film to the attentions of the Myspace generation.

Michelle Rodriguez
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there are not many positive female role models in this film. After all, that is sort of the point. Nevertheless, the Lost and Avatar actress plays a sultry taco-girl that joins Machete’s cause with gusto. She is seen in the trailer in a bikini and eye-patch, wielding a brace of shotguns.

A more accomplished actress then Alba and Lohan, she will presumably be able to find her feet and stand out from the rest of the eye-candy.

Steven Seagal
The Lawman himself refused Stallone’s offer of a part in The Expendables. However, he is seen in the Machete trailer, going blade-to-blade with Machete in what filmgoers are hoping to be one of the year’s best cameos.

Admittedly, it’s not quite going to top The Expendables as a roster of action superstars. Nonetheless, the heavyweight names of De Niro, Alba, Rodriguez, Seagal and Lohan make for an impressive cast for any film, let alone a fake seventies movie, expanded from a joke trailer.

With a cast like this, I would certainly call that getting lucky. Machete is to be released in the US today, and in November here in the UK. It’s not going to win any Oscars, but if you’re like me and you love the idea of Danny Trejo strapping a Gatling gun to the front of a Harley Davidson, this film is definitely for you.

Follow Matt Evans on Twitter here – @mevs42

After winning a competition in 2007 Jason Eisner’s fake trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun was attached to prints of Grindhouse. Another fake trailer that played as part of the Grindhouse double bill was Machete.

Both Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun are now ‘real’ feature films and today marks the US release of Machete (although it’s not released in the UK until late November). Fittingly the new trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun is playing in some theaters before Machete but not wanting to deprive fans Eisner has also released it online.

There have been quite a few videos released during the production of Hobo With a Shotgun, which stars Rutger Hauer as the titular Hobo, and you can check out our coverage here.

Eisner says the following of the trailer on his site:

This teaser was first created as a sizzle reel for producers and distributors. It was designed to give everyone an idea of what Hobo would look, sound and feel like. It got such a great reaction from everyone that we decided there was no way we should hide this from you guys.

Check out the trailer embedded below. Definitely NSFW.

The title of the video says AICN exclusive but I grabbed this from Jason Eisner’s Youtube Channel.

We’ve been keeping you up to date with all manner of Machete news, images, trailers and TV spots lately. Here are some of the recent posts.

Well, as they say, the hits just keep on coming. We now have a further set of posters from IMP Awards and they are every bit as subtle and sophisticated as you would expect from a film about a man wielding all manner of bladed weapons.

We’ve got Machete himself, with more knives than you can shake a stick at, Robert De Niro ready with twin 9mm’s, Michelle Rodriguez with a gun the size of Old Painless in one hand and Lindsay Lohan, in a nun’s habit, licking the barrel of an absurdly proportioned six-shooter. Tasteful. Classy.

In all seriousness, this looks genuinely awesome. It ‘s funny to think of it growing out of a tongue-in-cheek faux-trailer from the Grindhouse films into a fully-fledged feature. We’ve got two of the posters below, or click through the link above to IMP Awards for a few more. I am officially looking forward to this one.

Four character spots have spilled out onto the grimy floor of the internet and I thought it only fit to scoop them up and offer them up to you fine people.

Only a few weeks separate the eager audience from their date with Machete and Robert Rodriguez and Ethan  Maniquis’ film is sure to fill the void left by The Expendables.

While these new TV spots don’t show off anything new they still offer a good idea of what to expect when the film rolls around.

Here are the videos,

Who is Machete?

Who is Sartana?

Who is Shé?

Who is the Senator?

ComingSoon are due a thorough thanking.

We’ve teamed up with our friends at MoviePosterShop.com to bring new a new weekly competition which we have decided to call, ‘Movie Poster Monday’! Each week, we’ll be bringing you a competition to win a poster from a movie that is going to open that week.

About Movie Poster Shop: MoviePosterShop.com is an online retailer of movie posters, TV posters, lobby cards and more. They offer over 600,000 items, including many hard to find foreign-version posters. Head over to MoviePosterShop.com and embrace your inner movie fan!

This week, give you the chance to win this rather awesome poster from Danny Trejo’s new movie, Machete.  Machete is released 3rd September in the US & in the UK  26th November. It also stars Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson  and is directed by Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez.

We have the chance for one lucky reader to win this poster displayed. MoviePosterShop.com can post to anywhere in the world so feel free to enter, wherever you are!

The poster we are giving away can be seen here along with huge batch of other posters from the movie, all available from MoviePosterShop.com. It’s 27″ x 40″  (68.6cm x 101.6cm) and will look great on any wall!

To be in with a chance of winning this great prize, you must become a fan of the HeyUGuys FaceBook Page and also the MoviePosterShop.com Facebook page and answer the following question using the form below.

In which movie does Danny Trejo play a character named ch ‘Razor Charlie’?

The small print:

• This competition is open worldwide – you can enter from any country
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close Monday 30th August at 23.59 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

My favourite piece of the marketing for Machete so far has to be the Red Band trailer Robert Rodriguez put out for his feature length updating of the Grindhouse trailer Machete, and in anticipation of its release next month there’s a new clip sent out in the ether today.

Directing with Ethan Maniquis, Rodriguez is clearly having a lot of fun with this film, and the trailers and posters put out so far point to a balls out, gory action flick and in a few weeks the US will get their hands on Danny Trejo’s Machete.

In this clip Trejo reunites with an old friend, played by Rodriguez regular Cheech Marin, to plot some highly irreligious revenge.

The always excellent guys over at Latino Review had the exclusive here.

We reported at the beginning of the year on some of Ryan Reynold’s thoughts about his upcoming X-Men spin-off, Deadpool. Since then, much of the Reynolds/superhero focus has been on his turn as The Green Lantern, however Deadpool seems to still be very much on the cards.

There were various reports last month that Robert Rodriguez, who produced Predators recently, has Machete coming out soon and is also working on Spy Kids 4, might direct Deadpool. However all that came out of those “reports” was the usual maelstrom of speculation and denial from fans, the director and 20th Century Fox.

After all that though, The LA Times are reporting here that we might have lift-off after all. Rodriguez and Fox are apparently “negotiating”, which could mean a lot or very little, although the discussions do seem to have moved on from casual chit-chat to a serious consideration of the precise points of any actual deal.

His appearance in Wolverine (at least in the earlier scenes) re-enforced what Reynolds initially showed in Blade: Trinity, namely that he can handle both the action and the comedy elements required for Deadpool, what we don’t yet know is whether he can manage more than just being witty and charismatic in inferior sequels with too many colons in their titles. The Green Lantern will give us something of an answer to that question in due course.

In the meantime, let’s hope Rodriguez can strike a deal with Fox. Rodriguez’s films are always greatly entertaining and he would seem to be a great fit for the action / comedy balance that will likely be required for a Deadpool spin-off.

If you’re searching for the antidote to the clean cut niceties of Megamind then look no further than this literally gut wrenching new red band trailer for Machete.

There’s all sorts of blood letting and external internal organs and the Robert Rodriguez film has never looked better, it’s certainly an improvement on the last trailer we saw; put it this way – whereas the last trailer left out all the good bits – this trailer is where they put them.

Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez and Don Johnson head up the cast and there’s so much to enjoy here.

It’s for Over 18s only, so enter (or lie about) your age below to access the action.

Nuns and machine guns don’t usually go hand in hand, unless of course they are anything to do with Lindsey Lohan! A brand new image of Lohan has appeared on Dutch website, FilmTotaal.nl and ties in nicely with the posters and images that we’ve seen for the movie already.

Machete is directed by Ethan Maniquis & Robert Rodriguez and stars Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez and stars Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Stevemn Seagal and Don Johnson.

Synopsis: The feature version of the trailer finds Machete (Trejo) a renegade former Mexican Federale, roaming the streets of Texas after a shakedown from drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal). Reluctantly, Machete takes an offer from spin doctor Benz (Fahey) to assassinate McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) a corrupt Senator. Double crossed and on the run Machete braves the odds with the help of Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), a saucy taco slinger, Padre (Cheech Marin) his “holy” brother, and April (Lindsay Lohan) a socialite with a penchant for guns. All while being tracked by Sartana (Jessica Alba), a sexy ICE agent with a special interest in the blade slinger.

Machete is released in the UK 29th October.

Scott Pilgrim director Edgar Wright had recently tweeted about his involvement in a commentary for Don’t, the little seen spoof/fake trailer that was shown between double bill screenings of Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror.

One of the outstanding features of the whole Grindhouse experience was the fake trailers, and with titles like Hobo with a Shotgun and Werewolf Women of the SS they actually looked like they would make better movies than the slightly flawed Death Proof.

In fact, two trailers, Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun, have made the leap from trailer to feature with the Danny Trejo starring feature hitting screens later this year, and Rutger Hauer grabbing his shotgun and filming now.

Our good friends over at Bleeding Cool are reporting that Amazon, in the US at least, are listing a release for the whole Grindhouse experience on Blu-Ray in October, for the tiny sum of $13.99.

It may be worth noting that Amazon also listed Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair in a similar fashion, which didn’t finally emerge, but with Wright recording commentary it looks like this could be the real deal.

With only a few limited screenings as Grindhouse in the UK, many people will have not seen these films and trailers as the directors intended and I’m hoping we get this Blu-Ray package confirmed here soon.

Reported by Keith Bloomfield

Regardless of her character not appearing in the latest trailer, 20th Century Fox have released an individual character poster for Lindsay Lohan’s nun, April Benz. The poster is the latest in the line of character-based advertisements for Machete.

Contrary to reports she had been cut from the trailer, Fox have defended the non-appearance by suggesting she was never supposed to be featured.

I’m not quite sure whether Fox are playing off the mass exposure Lohan has garnered over the past couple of days, and this tongue-in-cheek poster showing Lohan’s character licking a gun, will only fuel the buzz surrounding her mental wellbeing.

It certainly won’t do Lohan’s reputation any favours.

Here’s the new poster, and you can see the others in the series here, which now look like a very disturbing set of Happy Families cards.

Reported by Jamie Neish