Nearly a decade has passed since Robert Rodriguez drove audiences through the sleazy, sexy world of Frank Miller’s Sin City, but by the looks of the trailer for the upcoming sequel, very little has changed.
After all, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For still has gorgeous, scantily-clad ladies like Jessica Alba:
And Eva Green:
Creating all kinds of headaches for tough guys like Josh Brolin:
And Ray Liotta, to name just a few.
But if you didn’t tell anyone, you would assume – based on the look and texture of this 60-second clip – that Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was coming out mere months after his original Sin City movie. The black-and-white color palette, disrupted by shocking patches of color (like red lipstick, or sticky blood). The deep use of shadows. The techno-wicked soundtrack, lending an air of menace to what’s sure to be a bloody affair.
The teaser goes to great lengths to associate A Dame to Kill For with Frank Miller. He’s the genius behind this gritty noir world, for sure, but he doesn’t have the name recognition that Robert Rodriguez does. Heck, the Troublemaker logo at the front of this clip calls to mind more recent projects that Frank Miller’s name. And yet, he gets an obvious and deliberately placed screenplay credit at the end of the clip. Will that sell more tickets to the geek crowd? Maybe if it were attached to the end of the first teaser trailer for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel 2 it would (dare to dream!), but here, it strikes me as an odd add on.
The original Sin City movie was comfortable investment for Dimension Films back in the day – as are almost all of Robert Rodriguez’s films He keeps his costs down, usually leading to increased profits. The first Sin City banked $158.7 million worldwide against a reported $40 million budget. Rodriguez shoots on the cheap in and around his green-screened studios in Texas. He works with friends and colleagues when they are free, meaning that you have to wait a long time for A Dame to Kill For, but the studio won’t take a bath if the movie can’t find an audience. It will be in theaters on August 22. Are you intrigued?
