Robert Rodriguez is launching his own animation studio, Quickdraw Animation and plans on making a new Heavy Metal animated feature film as one of the unit’s first two projects (the other is an as-yet-unnamed kid-targeted cartoon feature).  Rodriguez, who is the modern American cinema’s original DIY guy, says he has found a way to streamline the computer animation process.  He plans on keeping 6-8 animators working at his Troublemaker Studios in Austin.  They will create the stories, character designs, and key elements for the films with the grunt work assigned to sister companies to animate.

 

The original Heavy Metal movie was produced in Canada in 1981 and directed by Gerald Potterton, and a sequel of sorts, Heavy Metal 2000, which was also produced in Canada, was released at the turn-of-the-century to much less fanfare.  Both films were closely based on material that had appeared in the Heavy Metal comics anthology magazine, and were among the relatively few animated feature films produced here in North America that targeted older viewers.

 

At South By Southwest where Rodriguez outlined his plan for Quickdraw Animation, he also answered a few questions about a project comics fans are very keen on—the oft-delayed production of a sequel to the 2005 comic book-based hit Sin City, which earned $158.7 million in 2005.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rodriguez told the crowd that when he finishes Machete 2, which starts shooting in April, he will start on Sin City 2, though he gave no specific dates and was mum on casting for the second epic based on Frank Miller’s Dark Horse comic series, except to say that it would be on a par with the superb cast of the first Sin City film, which included Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Clive Owen, Jaime King, Josh Hartnett, Benecio Del Toro, and Elijah Wood.