Robert Rodriguez Describes the Inspiration Behind Spy Kids 4
Posted 04.29.11 by Ryan
Writer-director-producer-editor Robert Rodriguez made his first Spy Kids in 2001, releasing two sequels over the next two years. Several years later, Rodriguez is back with a sequel and reboot, Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, which stars Jessica Alba as Marissa Cortez Wilson, a former spy and stepmother to twins Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook). She's forced back into service and to enlist her stepchildren when a villain calling himself The Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven) threatens the world. In an interview with MTV, Rodriguez revealed that he stopped making the movies after the original spy kids Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara) started getting older, but found an inspiration that led him to feel that "10 years later, it felt right to do another one."
I got the idea when I was making Machete and Jessica came over to my house for lunch with the kids, and she was bringing her daughter out of the backseat. But her diaper had exploded and the kid had made a huge mess and just seeing Jessica dressed up, so beautiful and glamorous, but having to deal with this baby with an exploded diaper, I just thought, "I'd love to see her as a spy mom." I wrote it around her and figured she'd have two new stepkids who don't think their mom is cool, but she's really a spy and their dad plays a spy hunter on a TV show and doesn't know his wife is a spy.
Rodriguez says that, despite being in their twenties, Vega and Sabara will make an appearance as "older spies who are trying to reopen the spy agency, which got shut down because of budgetary reasons," and revealed that the movie is still filled with elements that emphasize family.
There's a robot dog and a spy baby and a new villain, played by Jeremy Piven. And I was looking at my own kids and how quickly time is going by and how you wish you could freeze a moment, so the villain is the Timekeeper, and he is taking time from people and the world is getting faster.
Jessica plays Antonio Banderas' younger sister, so she's still part of the original family. She's the aunt of the original spies. It's not really a reboot, so much as a sequel with new kids. And the Timekeeper, he takes time away from you if you're not spending it with your family, because of a personal thing he went through. It's a pretty cool villain plot, because he's not really a villain.
The "spy baby" plays into the recently released still, which sees Alba wearing a baby while still in her "spy gear". Rodriguez said that All the Time in the World will start with a pregnant Alba.
The opening scene is a flashback where she's about to give birth to the baby. The day she quit being a spy was the day she gave birth, so she's on her last mission, nine months pregnant, on her way to the hospital and still catching the bad guy. So she's repelling, sliding across the cars. Anyone who's been pregnant will tell you: "You're not supposed to do that!"
Closing out the summer, All the Time in the World co-stars Danny Trejo, returning as Uncle Machete, and Joel McHale, who plays the new spy kids' father, Wilbur.
Next Showing: Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World opens August 19