Spy Kids Getting Reboot at Netflix From Original Director Robert Rodriguez

At the beginning of 2021, it was revealed that The Book of Boba Fett director Robert Rodriguez would be rebooting his beloved family film Spy Kids, which was released in 2001 and spawned multiple sequels. According to a new report from Variety, the reboot is officially in the works at Netflix. Rodriguez is known for an array of projects ranging from From Dusk Til Dawn to Sin City, but he’s been revisiting some of his more family-friendly projects in recent years. He previously teamed up with Netflix for We Can Be Heroes, which saw the return of his characters Shark Boy and Lava Girl. 

According to Variety, there’s no word on when the reboot will be coming to the streaming service. However, Spyglass Media, which owns the Spy Kids franchise, is expected to remain involved with the new film along with Skydance. Plot details for the new Spy Kids are currently unknown, but the next generation is expected to “revolve around the activities of a multicultural family.” 

“My most rabid fanbase all these years, by far, has been my kid films. My Spy Kids audience,” Rodriguez previously shared at Cinema-Con. “These kids watch those movies over and over because they’re action films made for children and families, in particular at a time when they need empowerment. Netflix came to me [for We Can Be Heroes] because the Spy Kids movies had done just so well on their service. They said ‘Could you make a series of films that do that?’ And I said, ‘I’d love to!’”

The original Spy Kids film was released over 20 years ago, and surprised moviegoers by earning $112 million at the domestic box office. The movie starred Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa PenaVega, Daryl Sabara, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Teri Hatcher, Cheech Marin, and Danny Trejo. In fact, it was Spy Kids that launched Rodriguez’s hyper-violent Machete films, which saw Trejo reprising his Spy Kids character in a much different way. 

This isn’t the only upcoming project between Netflix and Rodriguez. It was announced last year that the director is working on a sequel to We Can Be Heroes for the streaming site. 

“They’ve been shocked at how well it’s kept doing. They call it unstoppable,” Rodriguez told Collider when speaking about Netflix. “They’ve never seen any movie behave like that. It just will not stop. Kids will just not stop watching it. And I think it happened with the Spy Kid movies, but you couldn’t ever keep track of it, because you can’t tell how many times kids watch it on VCR or watch on Disney channel. But now with their metrics, they can tell how many times a household is watching something again and again, through completion. Which a lot of the times when it’s been a big opening weekend, it didn’t mean people actually watched the whole movie. It means they watched five minutes or more.”

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