San Antonio-raised director Robert Rodriguez talks Twenty fifth anniversary of Spy Children forward of particular screening

Motion pictures reminiscent of 1985’s The Goonies and 1987’s The Monster Squad put children on the middle of the journey. However it wasn’t till San Antonio native Robert Rodriguez’s 2001 hit Spy Children that younger heroes reworked into bona fide motion stars. 

The thought was so distinctive, Dimension Movies jumped on the alternative to make it.

“When the studio man noticed the artwork, I keep in mind him saying he felt like he was Star Wars for the primary time,” the 58-year-old director informed the Present throughout an interview final week. “They beloved the idea.”

What they didn’t love, nonetheless, was that Rodriguez, a graduate of St. Anthony’s Excessive College, needed a household with a Spanish surname on the coronary heart of the story. Since nobody had tried it earlier than, the studio was nervous that solely Latino households would go to the theater to see it.

“I lastly informed them that it’s primarily based on my household, however greater than that, you don’t need to be British to get pleasure from James Bond,” Rodriguez stated. “It took that type of braveness and pushback early on with the intention to make it occur.”

Spy Children follows siblings Carmen and Juni Cortez (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara), who uncover their dad and mom (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are secret brokers. When a villain named Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) kidnaps them, the youngsters set off on a mission to rescue their household and cease a plan to take over the world.

On Saturday, July 11, Rodriguez will host a Spy Children Twenty fifth-anniversary screening on the Aztec Theatre. Together with a screening of the film, the occasion will embrace a Q&A with the director and a efficiency by the Rodriguez Household Spy Band, which is able to carry out songs from Rodriguez’s movies.

Throughout our interview, Rodriguez mentioned his ardour for empowering children via movie, why he thinks Spy Children continues to resonate immediately and the one gadget from the film he nonetheless needs was actual.

Do you ever watch household motion films immediately and see they’ve been impressed by Spy Children?

Oh, everyone will get influenced by everyone. I like seeing when [directors] put stuff of their movies that they grew up with. I used to be the identical method. I noticed Escape to Witch Mountain after I was a child. I keep in mind considering how cool it was that the little boy and little woman had powers. After seeing the film, me and my sister went house and performed collectively. We had by no means performed collectively earlier than. Once I go to those [anniversary] reveals, I meet adults who grew up with [Spy Kids], and so they inform me how they performed spies with their siblings due to the movie.

What’s nice about Spy Children is that it’s a uncommon live-action household film that doesn’t speak all the way down to children. Was that all the time your intention when making these films?

Effectively, sure, particularly the want success half and the messaging. [The film] even ends with [Carmen] immediately speaking to the digicam, giving a household message. Children have a tendency to observe and assist something that empowers them. I knew this might be very empowering to kids, and that they’d watch it time and again. So, you wish to put issues in there which are good for them to listen to and to take into their life. Every [Spy Kids movie] was all the time designed like this.

Apart from understanding the significance of household, what’s one thing that you simply assume youthful audiences have discovered from this franchise?

My [kid characters] by no means beat the unhealthy guys. They all the time flip the unhealthy man to the great aspect over the kindness of them being kids. So, by the third movie, they’ve collected all of the villains into their household. That was a really Latino factor, nevertheless it’s additionally very Roman Catholic. Rising up that method, you must forgive everyone and see the great aspect of everybody.

Whenever you watch the unique Spy Children immediately, do you see a filmmaker who’s already discovered his voice or have been you continue to figuring it out?

We simply watched the Twenty fifth anniversary screening in Austin, and [the film] didn’t appear to age. It felt simply as contemporary because it did 25 years in the past. I used to be actually stunned by that. Even the visible results, which most likely really feel dated, work very well within the context of the film. As a result of I’m from a household of 10 children after which began to have kids of my very own, I used to be on the actual place I wanted to be to make that movie. The id of [Spy Kids] comes from any individual who’s clearly a guardian and was a sibling to many siblings.

In 2024, Spy Children was added to the U.S. Library of Congress Nationwide Movie Registry for its cultural and historic significance to American cinema. Does that designation change how you concentrate on it now?

Yeah, it obtained that recognition fairly rapidly. I keep in mind my movie trainer at UT-Austin stated, “I’m instructing all my courses about [Spy Kids] as a result of it broke every kind of information.” It was the primary time a Latino household has been in a film the place they’re the heroes. The movie obtained its personal McDonald’s meal deal yearly. No one had had that earlier than. There have been so many firsts. So, it made sense that the Library of Congress would acknowledge it as one thing that was culturally vital. On the time, it was fairly seismic what it did. It got here out of nowhere and did a whole lot of issues that youngsters’ movies weren’t doing on the time.

Did you get any pushback from followers of El Mariachi, Desperado, From Nightfall Until Daybreak and The School for making a household film?

I don’t assume there was pushback as a result of they have been getting so lots of [my other films] too. As soon as Upon a Time in Mexico got here out simply two months after Spy Children 3-D. Numerous these [family] films got here out, and I had [an R-rated movie] to comply with it up. The very subsequent yr was Sin Metropolis and [The Adventures of] Sharkboy and Lavagirl. So, should you didn’t wish to see the household movie, I had one other one on the theater actually months earlier than or after. Sooner or later, it was a film for the large children, and in the future a film for the little children. What all of them have in frequent is that they’re all enjoyable comedies.

If Spy Children premiered immediately within the age of TikTok, what a part of the film do you assume would go viral?

Oh my gosh, it’s most likely the half within the film the place [Carmen] places this little yellow and pink package deal in what appears to be like like a microwave, and it turns right into a McDonald’s Completely satisfied Meal immediately. Everybody within the viewers again then – their minds have been blown most by that.

On that be aware, of all of the unbelievable devices featured in Spy Children, which one are you most disillusioned nonetheless doesn’t exist in 2026?

The one which has all the time disillusioned me since I used to be a child was the jetpack as a result of we dreamt about it. As a little bit child, we’d watch stuff like Jonny Quest, and he’s obtained a jetpack. The place’s my jetpack?! After which, I put it into Spy Children and thought, “Effectively, possibly somebody will lastly invent it.” However no, we nonetheless don’t have our jetpacks! Visitors is worse than ever. We could possibly be zipping round. What’s happening? We’re going to Mars, however we don’t have jetpacks!

Spy Children Twenty fifth Anniversary Celebration$19-$88, 3 p.m. Saturday, July 11, Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St, (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com.

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