Writer-director Robert Rodriguez inadvertently slammed his own 1996 From Dusk Till Dawn at the SXSW premiere of his series of the same name. While he is the director of both, and thus should be allowed to say one is better than the other, from outside the box this notion seems completely asinine.

Screen Rant caught up with Rodriguez at the ongoing fest, where he talked about how “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series” came together, the violence, and how he perceives it better than the original.

“The series is a crime saga with supernatural elements so you have to feel that from the very beginning, but it works much better because it’s the novel version so there are ties,” says Rodriguez. “Everyone’s supposed to get to that bar. Everyone’s destined to get there, and when they get there, because they don’t even get there until like halfway through the season, it’s so emotional when you get there, and you know what’s gonna happen and you know that everyone’s tied to it and it’s their destiny. Even the girl who comes out with the snake means so much now because you’ve gotten glimpses of her already. It’s really powerful and I really like this version more than the film.”

I related that same information in my review of the pilot; I wanted to see something fresh and new – although I worry that Rodriguez doesn’t have the same writing prowess of Quentin Tarantino, who wrote the original screenplay.

Speaking to that effect: “Really early on, I just thought this would be a really great show to do. Ever since we finished the movie, there’s a last shot that I put in that wasn’t in the script where the camera pulls back and you see that the bar was on top of an Aztec temple. People always loved that tease, thinking, ‘Is there a sequel that’s gonna follow this up,’ and we never did. And I’ve had that matte painting on my wall for 18 years and I always thought, I wanna do something with that. I didn’t know what. I didn’t know it’d be TV until I got this network.”

You can read the entire interview by clicking the above link.

The series will be premiering Tonight @ 9/8c on El Rey.