Robert Rodriguez is certainly beloved of fanboys (no matter how many Spy Kids films he makes), and so has become a fairly regular fixture at Comic-Con, where he’s always given a great reception. He had a presentation at the event to talk up his future plans, the most intriguing of which may be that while David Fincher has spent several years trying to get a movie version of the cult animated movie and magazine Heavy Metal off the ground, the rights have moved over to Rodriguez, who says he’s now going to have a go.
The idea seems to be to make an anthology style movie, with various characters and events from the Heavy Metal universe included, and various artists working on it. Rodriguez is also trying to get the fans involved, saying they can submit characters and storyline ideas over at amd.com/heavymetal with at least one of the film’s stories ‘crowd-sourced’ from the audience.
However Heavy Metal wasn’t the only thing Rodriguez felt the need to big up, saying that he was still working on a live-action adaptation of 1980s fantasy animation, Fire and Ice. The original was a collaboration between artist Frank Franzetti and Fritz The Cat creator Ralph Bakshi, with the idea essentially being to bring Franzetti’s fantasy oil paintings to life, using rotocoped animation (live action with the animation essentially drawn over the top). The original is a daring mix of sword, scorcery and animated boobs, with a young warrior called Larn seeking revenge for the destruction of his village by the evil Ice Lord, Nekron. Larn then goes off on a quest to rescue the princess Teegra after she’s kidnapped by one of Nekron’s underlings (there are definitely similarities between that world and the one of Heavy Metal).
Rodriguez also promised that sequels to both Sin City and Machete are moving forward. It’s easy to half-dismiss the Sin City report as Rodiriguez has been promising it for so long now that it’s starting to seem as if it’s just something he says to keep fans happy. However the fact he brought it up does suggest it’s still on his radar, even if for many hope of ever seeing a follow-up is fading.
And if you want to, you can click to watch Rodiriguez announce Heavy Metal below, and see how you can get involved.