I Caught up with Director Robert Rodriguez to chat about the DVD of “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” recently and ended up chatting about his future projects. Here’s the guts of that – in which he discusses “Madman”, “Predator 3” and the possibility of a “Desperado 4”.

“I'm doing a couple of things that are -- I mean I'm still getting the rights to them, but they're actually stuff that I didn't even originate, so that's going to be a lot of fun, couple of properties that I have always been a fan of and I think I have -- I've learned a lot on these last three movies experimenting with the technology and a lot of different tricks and stuff to figure out how to put these on screen. So yes, looking forward to the next couple, they'll be announced pretty soon if they go forward.

And what about the recently mooted “Madman”?

“Mad Man", we're writing "Mad Man" right now. Yes, Mike Hollard's going to come down, he just finished moving, he's coming in the next couple of weeks to come go through what we've been working up and see what he thinks.”

Rodriguez says it’s early days for the casting, but there’s a chance some of his former “Spy Kids” and “Desperado” cast might have parts. And the lead role? “I can say, but -- I know who but I can't say right now. We do have somebody.”

At one stage, there were rumours of a “Faculty” franchise too.

“You know, they said they wouldn't go make like those cheapo straight to video sequels without my approval, and I never told them to do one. But -- and I -- but that wasn't really mine, I didn't -- I didn't write it, so .... I think -- I guess they could have, but ... I think I had it in my deal they couldn't go off and do one without telling me or asking me. But ...

“I like doing sequels to my own stuff if -- because usually I've written them in a way that they can continue. Like even "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" could keep going because the man with no eyes becomes the man with no eyes in the third act. And you could -- you could picture him going on to other movies. So I try to write my scripts to where the characters go through a big enough change at the end that you almost want to see them continue.

So any chance of a “Desperado 4” then, with Johnny Depp headlining as the man with no eyes?

“I don't know. Hey, that's always a possibility. But even if you never did, you would still -- at least the audience could picture sequels. Where some movies are so complete feeling, like the "Faculty" you don't feel like -- well they killed the alien, that's it, you don't want to -- it doesn't feel like it would keep going, it feels like a complete story, that's how it was written.”

And what did ever happen to that “Predator 3” script, he was writing.

“Oh, "Predators", yes we're the "Predator 3", it's call "Predators". It was back when I was doing "Desperado". I wrote "Desperado", it was going to get made like end of September, and then "Last Action Hero" bombed, so they said we're not making any movies for a year, like next year. So I was like what am I going to do until then? So I took a writing assignment, and one of the writing assignments that was out was "Predator" sequel.

“So I said, yes I'll write a version of that. And it was just -- it was just crazy, it was huge, it was a big, big, big budget. Because I didn't have to direct it, I just had to write it. So I didn't really think about the budget, I was just like wrote this, wrote that. And it was really a cool script, it's floating around somewhere. But it's huge, and will never be made, the studio edited it and said there's no way we can make this, this would cost -- even at that time -- 150 million, and no women would ever go see this movie.

So even with “Aliens versus Predator", and you don't think there's any hope of the script getting made, it's just too big?

“It's too big, and they've now combined alien versus "Predators". So they're putting two franchises together, which is probably a smarter way to go since both of those franchises are pretty much dying down.
It's the only way to really revitalize it at all. But yes, the -- I don't think that'd ever make it, it was just too expensive.”

Talking of team-ups, why not match Desperado vs. The Spy Kids?

“No, that would be kind of cool, but then you'd have -- how would Antonio fight himself? He'd have to play dual roles. And Cheech and Danny Trejo “.

In related news, there’s whispers that Johnny Depp might be Rodriguez’s catch for “Madman” – now that’s a nice choice. Though he hinted towards that, there’s no confirmation.