According to Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke, word on the street is that the bidding war over the distribution rights to Robert Rodriguez's next movie, the independently-financed Machete is finally over. You may all remember Machete was originally a fake trailer featured between the awesome Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse films 'Planet Terror' & 'Death Proof.' 20th Century Fox beat out over five other studios for the rights to distribute it.
Danny Trejo returns in the title role, surrounded by a number of big stars including Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Rose McGowan, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal and Robert DeNiro. Robert Rodriguez wrote and produced the movie with financing from Rick Schwartz's Overnight Productions, and directed it with co-director Ethan Maniquis.
According to the report, the six studios were shown roughly 15 to 30 minutes of footage with the price set at $9 million with a healthy profit sharing from the film's theatrical and back-end grosses. Fox was already working with Rodriguez on his next project, the relaunch of the "Predator" franchise, which has already been given the name 'Robert Rodriguez's Predators.' While the Weinstein Company had the first look rights for the movie due to their long involvement with Rodriguez, the Machete deal included a production deal with Rodriguez, so one can probably assume that Fox will be the filmmaking pioneer's new home.
Plot: Machete is a renegade former "Mexican Federale". He roams the cities, towns, and streets of Texas looking for work after a shakedown from a drug lord called Torrez. Machete has a run-in with Benz, a local businessman and spin doctor, who tells Machete that McLaughlin, a corrupt senator, is sending hundreds of illegal immigrants out of the country and that he must be killed. Benz offers Machete $150,000 to kill McLaughlin who quickly accepts the murder contract. Attempting to assassinate the senator at a political rally, Machete is double-crossed and is shot in the shoulder by Benz's henchmen whom are soon revealed to be in league with Senator McLaughlin who orchestrated the entire attempted assasination with Benz to gain public support for McLaughlin's harsh anti-immigration laws by setting up Machete as the patsy to make it appear that an outlaw illegal Mexican immigrant tried to assasinate the senator. Now on the run from the law and being tracked by Sartana, a peristant U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent with a special interest in the blade slinger, Machete goes after Benz and his men, as well as Senator McLaughlin, with the help of his "holy" Federale-turned-priest brother Padre, a saucy meat cleaver-wielding taco slinger named Luz, and April, a socialite with a penchant for guns. Machete rallys a group of illegal migrants together, and begins to hunt the people who double crossed him.
I've been hoping for a 'Machete' film ever since I saw the trailer and I cannot wait. Also be on the lookout for another fake trailer that has been given the greenlight for a full feature, Eli Roth's 'Thanksgiving.'
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