Robert Rodriguez Explains Why He Turned Down so Many Franchises

Having made a point of retaining almost complete creative autonomy throughout his entire career by wearing multiple hats on virtually every single one of his projects, there was widespread belief that Robert Rodriguez simply had no interest in conforming to the studio system to tackle a big budget blockbuster.

Of course, that all changed when he partnered up with James Cameron to bring Alita: Battle Angel to the big screen, only for the blockbuster sci-fi to disappoint at the box office. It did spawn a massive fan campaign to will a sequel into existence, though, while Rodriguez even ended up getting into bed with Disney when he was recruited for The Book of Boba Fett.

Like plenty of other filmmakers before him, Rodriguez had ample opportunities to tackle a well-known IP that he ended up turning down, and he explained to The Playlist why he wasn’t enamored enough with either X-Men or Superman to sign on the dotted line.

“I was never making Superman, I was never making X-Men, but I read early drafts and they were early drafts. Like they would require so much work to make them work that at that point you might as well be making your own thing that you can control. Why am I going to go figure this out for these guys? I never got like a golden script that was like the movie that it turned out to be, so it was easy not to make those.”

Not only that, but he also dodged a bullet when it came to John Carter, which ended up as one of the biggest money-losing disasters in Hollywood history when Andrew Stanton finally dragged it over the finish line in 2012.

“Yeah, John Carter – it was called Princess of Mars. Jon Favreau was going to do that at some point, too. We both were into that, because I love the Frank Frazetta stuff, but then Sin City came along, so right away I was just like, ‘You know what? This is more my speed. I’m going to do this one.’ And the technology wasn’t quite there, you know. To do something like Princess of Mars in the day, unless you’re Jim Cameron.”

Rodriguez seems happy with the trajectory has career has taken, even if it would be fascinating to see how his signature stylistic and aesthetic flourishes would have worked in either the superhero or fantasy spaces.

via Disney

Having made a point of retaining almost complete creative autonomy throughout his entire career by wearing multiple hats on virtually every single one of his projects, there was widespread belief that Robert Rodriguez simply had no interest in conforming to the studio system to tackle a big budget blockbuster.

Of course, that all changed when he partnered up with James Cameron to bring Alita: Battle Angel to the big screen, only for the blockbuster sci-fi to disappoint at the box office. It did spawn a massive fan campaign to will a sequel into existence, though, while Rodriguez even ended up getting into bed with Disney when he was recruited for The Book of Boba Fett.

Like plenty of other filmmakers before him, Rodriguez had ample opportunities to tackle a well-known IP that he ended up turning down, and he explained to The Playlist why he wasn’t enamored enough with either X-Men or Superman to sign on the dotted line.

“I was never making Superman, I was never making X-Men, but I read early drafts and they were early drafts. Like they would require so much work to make them work that at that point you might as well be making your own thing that you can control. Why am I going to go figure this out for these guys? I never got like a golden script that was like the movie that it turned out to be, so it was easy not to make those.”

Not only that, but he also dodged a bullet when it came to John Carter, which ended up as one of the biggest money-losing disasters in Hollywood history when Andrew Stanton finally dragged it over the finish line in 2012.

“Yeah, John Carter – it was called Princess of Mars. Jon Favreau was going to do that at some point, too. We both were into that, because I love the Frank Frazetta stuff, but then Sin City came along, so right away I was just like, ‘You know what? This is more my speed. I’m going to do this one.’ And the technology wasn’t quite there, you know. To do something like Princess of Mars in the day, unless you’re Jim Cameron.”

Rodriguez seems happy with the trajectory has career has taken, even if it would be fascinating to see how his signature stylistic and aesthetic flourishes would have worked in either the superhero or fantasy spaces.