We Can Be Heroes Director Robert Rodriguez Talks the Rodriguez Cinematic Universe

Robert Rodriguez's new film, We Can Be Heroes, hits Netflix on Christmas Day. The movie follows a group of kids who must rescue their superhero parents, The Heroics, from an alien abduction. Recently, ComicBook.com had a chat with Rodriguez and the director explained that Netflix wanted him to create an original story, but he decided to include his characters Sharkboy and Lavagirl. He compared the decision to the Avengers sometimes working with Spider-Man. In honor of the comparison and the fact Rodriguez has a bunch of awesome original characters from his filmography, we asked if he'd ever considered building a cinematic universe.

"Maybe in a comic book, I can bring all my original characters, and then if that works... Because they're all at different studios and stuff," Rodriguez pointed out. "[We Can Be Heroes] was fun, to do something that felt like that, but was really a new IP, but, yeah, that is an interesting, fun idea, because there's so many characters over the years. You could have a Desperado character with a Machete with Spy Kids grown up and with Sharkboy and Lavagirl, you know, you could just on and on. I've gotta come up with a story, that's good."

Like we told Rodriguez, that's a team-up we'd watch! During our chat, the director also explained what he loves about Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

"I always wanted to do something again with them 'cause I just love those characters," Rodriguez explained. "They were like the original little kids' superheroes. And I didn't come up with it, my son did, and I thought, 'Wow, that's amazing.' That's what a kid really loves, empowerment. And why not have shark strength and be half-boy, half-shark, or have the powers of lava?"

We Can Be Heroes stars Pedro Pascal, Christian Slater, and Boyd Holdbrook as some of Earth's biggest heroes. It also features Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Christopher McDonald, Adriana Barraza, Vivien Blair, Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Akira Akbar, Lyon Daniels, Nathan Blair, Lotus Blossom, Hala Finley, Andy Walken, Dylan Henry Lau, Andrew Diaz, Taylor Dooley, Sung Kang, Haley Reinhart, J. Quinton Johnson, Brittany Perry-Russell, Brently Heilbron, and JJ Dashnaw.

"My kids are at the age when they can make films alongside me. So we came up with the idea of…like an Avengers team but they all have kids," Rodriguez said earlier this year. "The kids have powers but they don't know how to use them because they're just so young. It was the most challenging movie I'd ever done because, any director knows, the most challenging scene is like a dinner scene where you got a lot of people. The whole movie I got eleven superhero kids in every shot. Trying to figure out how to film that was incredible. It's really challenging and exciting and I already shot it and was editing it when this [pandemic] happened."

We Can Be Heroes hits Netflix on December 25th.