For those who don’t remember, Dimension Films’ 2007 Grindhouse was so jam-packed with awesome that it contained several faux trailers that helped stitch together feature films from both Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. One such trailer was for Machete, which featured Danny Trejo as an ex-Federale who launches a brutal rampage of revenge against his former boss. Even though Grindhouse was a massive flop (allegedly because it starred Rose McGowan to Harvey Weinstein’s protest), Rodriguez teamed with Ethan Maniquis to co-direct a feature version of Machete, which would arrive in theaters by 2010. It was a moderate success ($44M worldwide on a $10M budget), which helped Rodriguez get his solo-directed sequel Machete Kills into theaters by 2013. It would flop.
Machete Kills ends with a tease for a third and final film in the trilogy, Machete Kills Again… In Space, which seemed highly unlikely at the time. Still, Trejo has been vocal in promising that it’s in development, continually stating that he and Rodriguez are “working on it.” In fact, back in April of 2015, Trejo claimed it was in the works for that year.
It’s been three years since that report and nothing has come to fruition. However, Trejo is once again telling fans that he and Rodriguez are beginning work on Machete Kills Again… In Space.
“I’ve already talked to Robert,” he told Yahoo!. “Robert said, ‘I’m with ya, put it together, let’s start writing it.’ Then I talked to Mel Gibson, I said, ‘Mel, come on, let’s do the Machete Kills In Space.’ Mel says, ‘I’m in, I’m ready, tell Robert.’ So now we’re gonna do it, yeah.”
On first glance, I got super excited, but then I started to read between the lines. Rodriguez is asking Trejo to “put it together”? What the hell does that mean? Is Trejo now producing it? Is it his job to find a distributor, financier (Fox distributed Machete while Open Road put out Machete Kills)? It’s even worse when you see that there’s still no script. It’s been four years filled with empty promises and now we’re learning that they haven’t even started writing?! I guess they could pound it out in a few weeks, but this is disheartening news.
Machete could kill again, but it’s feeling like we shouldn’t expect this anytime soon, especially with Rodriguez busy with Alita, Jonny Quest, and Ugly Dolls taking up his free time. At least we’ll always have the trailer.