Even though Robert Rodriguez has long been touting 2009′s Machete was the beginning of a trilogy of films, it was thought to be dead in the water due to the lackluster performance of the original. Now, Deadline is reporting that Rodriguez has producer Alexander Rodnyansky on board and is ready to move forward with the sequel Machete.

The sequel, as was hinted during the first film, will be titled Machete Kills, already has a script and will start production as soon as April. The new film finds Machete recruited by the U.S. Government to take on a mission that would be too much for any normal man.

Machete must battle his way through Mexico single-handed to “take down a madman cartel leader and an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has hatched a plan to spread war across the planet with a weapon in space.”

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For a good amount of time, there was some worry that Robert De Niro was going the way of Dustin Hoffman where he stopped going after meaty or serious roles, only to focus on easy paychecks and “fun” projects.

With his recent return to the Fockers franchise, and his laughably bad performance in Machete, we were starting to worry if the once-amazing actor was lost forever. Now we see he may be coming towards the light once again, as he’s got second billing in Relativity Media’s upcoming sci-fi thriller Limitless.

In it, De Niro plays Carl Van Loon, a mysterious businessman who knows more than Bradley Cooper’s Eddie Morra about his own new abilities, all thanks to a pill that grants him limitless power.

In the clip we have for you, De Niro and Cooper face off in an intense battle of wits, and give each other their own trademarked dramatic stare. Check it out after the jump, and catch Limitless in theaters on March 18th.

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It’s that time of year again. The time when actors and actresses are honored for all the hard work they piled together in the 12 months leading up to one moment of pay off and a tiny little statue. We’re speaking, of course, about the Razzie Awards. These are the awards given out on the eve of Oscar night to those actors, actresses, and fimlmmakers who have produced some of the worst film projects to hit theaters in the past year.

Many remember last year’s big Worst Actress winner being Sandra Bullock, who went on the very next night to win an Oscar for a role in a completely different film. This year’s potentials could have the same luck, but we doubt it. Here’s the shortlist of actors from LA Times.

Among movies and actors shortlisted for the Razzies are Jessica Alba, who is eligible for worst supporting actress for four films (“The Killer Inside Me,” “Little Fockers,” “Machete” and “Valentine’s Day”), and Emily Blunt, eligible in the same category for her work in “The Wolfman” and “Gulliver’s Travels.”

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Just when you think Robert Rodriguez is going to zig, he zags. Unlike his friend and mentor, Tarantino, who puts out an artistically written film once every four years, Rodriguez is constantly reinventing himself, claiming domain over genres ranging from ultra violent exploitation films to 3D family flicks.

It looks like he’s doing a bit of fan service in both directions now with the casting for Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World. It’s been recently confirmed that Rodriguez has obtained Jessica Alba, Jeremy Piven, and Community’s Joel McHale to star in the film, with actors like Alexa Vega, Antonio Banderas, and Danny Trejo to return. Here’s the rundown of the film from the studio.

On the surface, Marissa Cortez Wilson (Jessica Alba) has it all…married to a famous spy hunting television reporter, a new baby and intelligent twin step kids. But in reality, trying to mother Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook), who clearly don’t want her around, is her toughest challenge yet. Also, her husband, Wilbur (Joel McHale), wouldn’t know a spy if he lived with one which is exactly the case – Marissa’s a retired secret agent.

Marissa’s world is turned upside down when the maniacal Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven) threatens to take over the planet and she’s called back into action by the head of OSS, home of the greatest spies and where the now-defunct Spy Kids division was created. With Armageddon quickly approaching, Rebecca and Cecil are thrust into action when they learn their boring stepmom was once a top agent and now the world’s most competitive ten year olds are forced to put their bickering aside and rely on their wits.

With a little help from a couple of very familiar Spy Kids, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara), and some mind-blowing gadgets, they just may be able to save the world and possibly bring their family together while they’re at it.

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While she’s not busy beating up the creator of Fantastic Fest, Tim League, Michelle Rodriguez is off making some pretty bad ass films. She was the strong female lead (not the damsel in distress) in this summer’s Machete, and now it seems that she’s got another machine-gun-toting action film in the works with Citizen Jane.

As awesome of a premise as you could come up with given that title, you can imagine what the filmmakers were thinking of when this concept was written out.

Citizen Jane stars Michelle Rodriguez as Charlotte Foster Jane, a lethal assassin hell bent on avenging the murder of her parents in this guns blazing, action packed retelling of Orson Welles 1941 classic, Citizen Kane.

She will do anything for her Rosebud…

Set to release September 5th of next year (during Fantastic Fest ’11, no doubt), we will hopefully get some more info about the film as we get closer to the release date. In the meantime, check out the intense teaser trailer for it after the jump and ask yourself “What would you Xanadu?”

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Resident Evil: Afterlife put up some pretty impressive numbers over the weekend, particularly for a franchise’s fourth film. The movie wasn’t screened for critics, so there was no early buzz on the film.  The $27.7M take speaks volumes about the franchises built in audience.

The film exceeded the opening weekend of Resident Evil: Extinction (the last film in the series), which made $23.7M. However, considering inflated ticket prices and 3D upcharges, it did not actually bring more people to the theater.

This morning, Milla Jovovich has confirmed that there will be a fifth film.

Good thing the movie made some money, because everything else had a positively dismal showing.  Takers nabbed the number two spot with $6.1M.

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This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt take on a whole bunch of new topics. Some of these include the box office success and relative merit of movies like The American, Machete and Takers as well as new trailers for films like Let Me In and Hobo with a Shotgun.

They also discussed more Expendables 2 and X-Men 4 rumors, casting news and all manner of other showbiz-related topics. Plus, the boys talked all-things Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Chris and Matt also made some pics this week including Matt’s pick of the game Dead Rising 2: Case Zero and Chris’ pick of the campy yet fun Machete.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

George Clooney still has it, at least for this weekend.  His latest film The American made an estimated $13M over the weekend, which was good enough for a first place finish.

Labor Day weekend is typically very slow, so believe it or not, that is a healthy box office total. The real shocker is how audiences responded to the film. Cinemascore is a tracking system used to tally audience response to a film.  Exit polls are used as indicators of a film’s longevity at the box office. The American earned a shocking D- grade, meaning audiences really hated it.  It garnered an F from women. (You can read our positive take on the film here.)

Of course, mis marketing the film as an action movie no doubt led to lots of false expectations.  It’s a good film but a tough sell. It is a deliberately paced pot-boiler character study.  Those looking for a jolting action flick probably found themselves snoozing in no time.

Holdover Takers landed the number two spot with $11.5M.   Machete was hot on its heels with an estimated $11.3M.  Considering how graphically violent the movie was, this is a pretty good take, plus its reported budget was only $20M, so it should easily earn back its budget.

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Grindhouse is a term used to describe a movie theater that specialized in showing Exploitation movies, primarily in the 1970s.  That type of movie was often made on the cheap, and contained salicious subject matter like nudity, drugs, or taboo behavior.

In 2007, Director Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino brought us the Grindhouse double-feature, which consisted of Planet Terror and Death Proof.  The film itself was scratched up to replicate what a real grindhouse might have looked like.  The movie(s) were heavy on the gore, nudity, and camp, just like the old days.

The movie featured fake trailers for upcoming films, one of which was for a movie called Machete, featuring grizzled character actor Danny Trejo.  Rodriquez decided to flesh out the ideas behind the trailer and dusted off a script he wrote in 1993 to give the film the full feature treatment.

Machete (pronounced throughout the film as Ma-chet-ay) is the moniker given to an ex federale  from Mexico who witnessed horrible atrocities committed on his family and has become a vigilante of sorts, vowing to bring down the people responsible for killing his family.  No surprise that his weapon of choice is a newly sharpened machete, though he will use just about any implement in a pinch.

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We may be getting farther and farther away from the opening weekend of this year’s biggest action film, but that just means that we’re getting closer to this year’s biggest action film based on a spoof trailer, Machete. Robert Rodriguez has promised that this film will not disappoint fans who love this genre, and especially fans who love the film’s star Danny Trejo.

Why not keep that excitement going with a brand new clip of Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez having some harsh words. This looks to be one of the only scenes in the flick that doesn’t involve gratuitous nudity or violence, but it’s ok because we at least have some pretty things to look at.

If Alba and Rodriguez aren’t enough to get the blood pumping, how about a full cast of stars like De Niro, Cheech, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal, and Don Johnson? That put a smile on your face? It should.

Check out the clip after the jump, and be sure to keep it here for more upcoming clips from Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, in theaters next Friday.

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There are plenty of reasons to be excited for Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming Machete, but one reason alone should be that he managed to get Robert De Niro into the film as the shifty senator McLaughlin, the film’s main antagonist.

The film, based on Rodriguez’s spoof trailer attached to 2008′s Grindhouse, has become a combination of a labor of love and a medium-budget action flick. Though the plot doesn’t mean a whole lot to those seeing the film, basically Machete (played by Danny Trejo) is an ex-badass who’s forced back into the world of badass-ery to take down some bad guys. Hooked? We thought so.

If De Niro isn’t enough to get you to pay $10 for the flick, he’s joined by a once all-star cast who we can’t wait to see again in action. Names like Steven Sesgal, Lindsay Lohan, Don Johnson, Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey, Michelle Rodriguez, and even a Troublemaker Studios regular, Cheech Marin.

Check out a brand new clip from the film after the jump, in which we get a fun twist on De Niro’s performance in Taxi Driver. Be sure to catch Machete in theaters on September 3rd.

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There are a lot of things that can be said about the directing style of Robert Rodriguez since his start with El Mariachi back in 1992. His style may have changed drastically to accommodate to many films, but one thing is for sure, he has always stayed away from the cheap MTV-style fast cuts and hokey editing tricks. The newest red band trailer for Machete could mean that he’s thrown that rule out the window.

The trailer comes as a treat to those who made it out to Comic-Con this year, and now those who didn’t. It’s also a red band in every sense of the word. You get plenty of swearing, hyper violence, and nudity. Also? A few great lines from De Niro and Segal, which almost makes it all worth it.

The trailer is hyper-stylized, with plenty of stutter cuts and can make you a bit nauseous if you’re trying to follow what’s going on. We’ve said enough, though.

Check the trailer out for yourself, courtesy of the cats at IGN, after the jump, and catch Rodriguez’s Machete in theaters September 3rd.

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