Alita: Battle Angel was a movie that found a strong fan base, but failed to set the box office on fire. For his next movie, Robert Rodriguez won't need to worry about box office numbers at all, because he's making his next movie, a superhero project called We Can Be Heroes, for Netflix.
Rodriguez has written the script and will direct and produce We Can Be Heroes. The movie is a family adventure that will see all the world's superheroes kidnapped by aliens, leading a group of children to team up to save their parents and the world.
If you're familiar with the work of Robert Rodriguez, then the premise of We Can Be Heroes might sound familiar, as it's pretty similar to the plot of the original Spy Kids. In that movie, a pair of siblings discover that their parents are super spies when they get captured, and must become spies themselves in order to rescue mom and dad.
This movie basically just sounds like the superhero version of the same story. Of course, the Spy Kids movies spawned sequels and were, generally speaking, pretty good, so if the idea isn't broken, there's no need to fix it.
The movie is putting together a solid cast. Deadline has revealed that Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Christian Slater, Pedro Pascal, and more are on board to star as the adult heroes.
Robert Rodriguez is one of those directors who has shown he is capable of pretty much anything. He can do a family adventure movie like Sharkboy and Lavagirl as easily as he can make a gritty adult drama like Sin City. We Can Be Heroes follows his effort directing Alita: Battle Angel, a movie based on a Japanese manga and produced by James Cameron. The movie has built a passionate fan base, but it seems unlikely the movie will become the franchise that it was looking to become.
Rodriguez is just the next high profile filmmaker to jump on board the Netflix bandwagon. At this point it's really not even unique to find out that big stars or directors are working for the streaming service. And with new players like Disney about to jump into the game, original content is going to be key to helping consumers decide just which services they plan to spend their money on.
Robert Rodriguez has shown how skilled he is with family content like this, so the movie sounds perfect. It's also not the sort of thing that you can imagine Hollywood spending money on for a major theatrical release today, which makes it perfect for Netflix. It's hard to imagine a major studio shelling out for the original Spy Kids in the current climate.
We Can Be Heroes is reportedly filming in Texas right now, so expect it to hit the streaming service sometime next year.
