Earlier this year while doing early SXSW press for “Predators”, Danny Trejo and Robert Rodriguez teased possible sequel titles for “Machete,” called “Machete Kills” and “Machete Kills Again.” During these conversations, the suggested titles seemed like a jokey riff between the director and actor, and considering they also talked about “Machete In Space,” not many people took these sequel titles very seriously.
But “Machete” actually nods its conclusion to these titles (you’ll see). Is Robert Rodriguez, his co-director Etan Manquis, and Trejo testing to see how far they can turn the joke into a reality? It sure seems like it and it’s something that Rodriguez spoke openly about in this morning’s press junket in L.A., noting that he saved some characters from a final death so he could have them for further “Machete” films.
“Some people who didn’t die in the film actually did die, I just cut out their deaths,” Rodriguez said, noting that there will be a “cool extended cut” of the picture eventually. “[I did so because] I wanted to save them for a sequel, but you actually see that they did perish. Where the movie will go next? I have a bunch of ideas for it. It’s all in the end titles. We have to make them, of course, ‘Machete Kills’ and ‘Machete Kills Again.’ Once you put it out there, just like we did with the trailer, you have to make it. When I made that trailer, for years — more than ‘Sin City 2’ — people would say, ‘when are you going to make ‘Machete?’ This movie is almost a response to the fans. If they hadn’t been after me….about making the movie, I really don’t think we would gotten around do doing it.”
Asked if he will make them back to back, Rodriguez only responded with a pause and said, “I don’t know. If we could. They’d have to be really good. You wanna surprise people and make some really good movies.” Perhaps the box-office will make the decisions for them.
20th Century Fox has been releasing some clips from the film and Bloody Disgusting, Movieweb, Latino Review have three scenes. “Machete” arrives in theaters September 3.