Honestly, if we had a nickel for every false-start Sin City 2 story we ran, we’d have…..five nickels. Anyway, with news that William Monaghan is now on board to get the script finished, we can only hope that the speculated shooting period of early 2012 will not prove to be another false dawn. Frank Miller gave more reassurance by discussing with MTV recently a bit more information about the stories that seem likely to find their way into the latest set of overlapping episodes.

A Dame to Kill For seems set to be the main story, which involves characters such as Gail, Miho and Manute (which may therefore see Michael Clarke Duncan and Rosario Dawson back on set), as well as Clive Owen’s Dwight. Further stories will also be involved, one featuring Jessica Alba’s Nancy (rescued by Bruce Willis from the mildly jaundiced Nick Stahl in That Yellow Bastard in the first film), in an effort to provide a through-line for audiences. To be honest, the world of Sin City is so stylish, so evocative, that it may not matter a great deal if anyone returns from the first film. It seems likely that the sequel will “work” regardless.

Miler says that “Just Another Saturday Night” will also be included, which might bring back Mickey Rourke’s Marv. A welcome addition to the film, though Mickey Rourke seems non-committal to say the least, having been quoted a few years ago as saying:-

“No, I’m not interested in that right now. That’s not a reality right now. It’s pissing in the wind. There’s different factions going different directions there. I don’t know. That’s three hours of make up and I’m claustrophobic, so I’m going to have to work something out”

But a few years is a long time and he may change his mind if the script is right and Robert Rodriguez does indeed return to direct. Frank Miller’s exact words to MTV were:-

“Sin City number two is primarily an adaptation of the book ‘A Dame to Kill For’. It also features the short story, ‘Just Another Saturday Night’ and two new stories. One involving Jessica Alba‘s character, Nancy Callahan, that I came up with for the movie in order to tie things together and make it be more united with the first.”

So there you go. Rodriguez won’t commit until he’s seen the script and is sure it is up to snuff, so as ever, we’ll see.

Source: IndieWire and MTV.

Goodness me, the development of Sin City 2 has been going on forever. There was a time when its entry on IMDb showed “In Production” for a 2010 release, which I think we can all now agree is unrealistic.

At Comic-Con in July, Rodriguez said that funding was in place and that shooting would begin once the cast and script were locked down. Miller has apparently sorted out the first draft of the script and no less impressive a writer than William Monahan, Oscar-winner for The Departed has now been drafted in to work on it further.

There is plenty of Sin City material to populate another film, whether utilising further stories for previous characters (like Mickey Rourke’s Marv), or bringing in hitherto unexplored strands. Hopefully this won’t be another false dawn and we can get back to Sin City some time soon. Monahan is said to be reuniting with Scorsese for a remake of 1974′s The Gambler and has also scripted Oblivion, a hot-hot-hot sci-fi project to which Tom Cruise is now attached, but he should be able to find ample time to have a bit of a tweak with Sin City.

Thanks to THR for the heads up on his one.

One-man film studio Robert Rodriguez is currently doing the promo rounds for the forth instalment of his Spy Kids series (really Robert, really?) and had this to say to We Got This Covered about work on his long-awaited sequel to the adaptation of the famed Frank Miller graphic novel series, and the follow-up to his Grindhouse-inspired effort from last year:

“ Sin City 2 is going good, we’re just finishing the script for that, we already got the money. We have everything we need so we can just start shooting as soon as we get the pages. And it’s the same thing for Machete 2. We’ve already got the budget, just waiting for the script. As soon as we’re finished writing we get to start the shoot.”

All this really begs the question, is Rodriguez planning on shooting anything in the near future which isn’t based on any of his past projects?

One thing which can be said about the director is that he isn’t adverse to wheeling out interesting gimmicks and marketing ploys to try and inject new life into those rehashes. The third Spy Kids film used 3D many years before James Cameron unleashed it on the cinema-going population, and Spy Kids: All The Time In The World is billed as being filmed in “4D Aromascope” (essentially, that old-school process which allows people to smell odors and aromas from the film via scratch & sniff cards).

Fans who were hoping the director might embark on something fresh and new, may groan at this news, but the fact is he’s a sound investment for Hollywood. This new Spy Kids adventure (which, incidentally, features the voice of Ricky Gervias as a talking dog) was made for the relatively smallish sum of $40 million (particularly restrained for a forth film in a popular series) and his next two sequels will undoubtedly follow a similar, modest budgetary path.

So its good news for the cost conscious studios and bad news for those out there who are still waiting on Rodriguez to fulfil his prophesy of being the man to revolutionise the film industry. Or maybe he has already?

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.

In a livechat Facebook interview that took place over the weekend, Robert Rodriguez told fans that Sin City 2 would be filmed after production has wrapped on Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.

He was quoted as saying:

“Frank Miller and I are working on it [...] It’s slated to be the next one, but if the script is not ready, then we’ll have to move to the next one.”

Also, despite the fact Bruce Willis’ character Hartigan died in the first Sin City film, Rodriguez hopes they can find a way to bring him back in the sequel.

“I wanna bring him back for Sin City because he’s so bad-ass.”

Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World is currently shooting in Austin, Texas, so don’t expect work to commence on Sin City 2 for at least another year. However, that said, this gives Sin City fans hope that the long-delayed sequel may still see the light of day.

After years of being nothing more than a dangling carrot, it seems that Sin City 2 is finally moving forward.  While there isn’t a ton of information about it, Mania.com reports that Producer Stephen L’Heureux confirmed that production is to start in the latter half of 2010.  The difference between the first film and the sequel however, is the sequel will be based on original material written by Frank Miller.

It’s been 4 years since Sin City was released and in that time talk of a sequel has been heard over and over but it’s been nothing more than tentative speculation.  It seems like now there is more than a shred of hope that part 2 will actually happen.  Good news for the fans who have waited patiently.  Let’s just hope that by the time it makes it to theaters it won’t be too late.

For fans of Frank Miller, another one of his graphic novels is being developed as well.  Hard Boiled is on deck to be adapted for film as well.  This one may be a ways off however due to Sin City 2.  It’ll be a while before this one makes it to the screen.

You can check out the full story at Mania.com.  /Film also posted a piece that talks about it as well as the logistics of getting Miller and Robert Rodriguez back together to direct.

We’ll keep you updated with information as we get it.