Spy Kids and Sin City director Robert Rodriguez is currently helming a new superhero film for Netflix, titled We Can Be Heroes. According to Rodriguez, the movie not only features an original cast of characters, but also sees the return of a certain superhero duo from his past: Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
During the Collider: Directors on Directing panel at Comic-Con@Home, Rodriguez discussed We Can Be Heroes, which follows the children of Earth's superheroes -- who must rise to the occasion, learn to work together and learn to be heroes themselves when their parents are kidnapped by aliens. "We have a huge cast," he said. "Even Sharkboy and Lavagirl even show up as superhero parents who now have a daughter who's got shark and lava powers. And she's like six."
The characters of Sharkboy and Lavagirl originate from Rodriguez's 2005 film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, which was something of a spiritual successor to 2003's Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. The film follows the character of Max (Cayden Boyd) as he embarks on a mission to save the world, venturing to the dream world Planet Drool alongside the superheros Sharkboy and Lavagirl, played by Taylor Lautner and Taylor Dooley, respectively.
Rodriguez actually let it slip last month in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that Dooley would be reprising her role as Lavagirl in We Can Be Heroes, though this revelation kind of flew under the radar at the time. "[Dooley] looks incredible like she stepped into her own sequel as Lavagirl," he said. "It's a big movie. It's a big cast. And it's gonna be it's super fun [sic]." That being said, while the director now says both Sharkboy and Lavagirl will be returning, there is currently no official word on if Lautner will be reprising his role as the former.
Elsewhere in the Comic-Con@Home video, Rodriguez discussed how exciting We Can Be Heroes has been to make, as well as the trialsnh it has presented. He says Netflix approached him to make movies it when his children's films like Spy Kids performed well on the service. He also says the large cast made filming a challenging experience, but spoke highly of the people on-board, such as Narcos alums Pedro Pascal and Boyd Holbrook. Like most productions, We Can Be Heroes has also fallen victim to delays brought about by the ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Rodriguez says the film has been shot and that he was in the editing process when the global health crisis took hold. Currently, he is working remotely with an orchestra to put together the movie's score.
Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, We Can Be Heroes stars Priyanka Chopra, Christian Slater, Taylor Dooley, YaYa Gosselin, Akira Akbar, Haley Reinhart, Andy Walken, Andrew Diaz, Pedro Pascal, Sung Kang, Boyd Holbrook, Brently Heilbron, Hala Finley, Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Lotus Blossom, Lyon Daniels, Nathan Blair, Vivien Lyra Blair, Adriana Barraza, Brittany Perry-Russell, Christopher McDonald, J. Quinton Johnson and Dylan Henry Lau. The Netflix superhero film does not currently have a release date.