El Rey Network, Robert Rodriguez’s new TV venture, presented a panel to the Television Critics Association, including a session on the “From Dusk Till Dawn” movie series. El Rey announced a March 11 premiere and showed a clip, which revealed new actors playing the Gecko Brothers, the Clooney and Tarantino characters from the movie, holding up a quickie mart and taking a family hostage from a motel.
The director of the original film and producer of the new series, Rodriguez explained how the series retells the story of the movie and expands, including the already publicized reference to Big Kahuna Burger. “It’s a complete retelling of the original story for a bit and then it goes into other areas,” said Rodriguez. “In the movie you only heard about the bank heist or the breakout from the penitentiary and the trip to the Kahuna burger, what really went down there. We get to see things fans of the movie never would have seen, but the motivations are different. Everyone is drawn to that place for a reason. You’ll be continually surprised. We retell it in a way only to expand it. We wouldn’t want to make seasons based on the film but off something that has a much deeper, wider storytelling. The fun is exploring ideas that were just was ideas.”
Rodriguez also pinpointed exactly where the series will depart from the story we know. “By episode seven you’ll have no guide to what’s going on because it’s completely different.”
Another fun hook of the show is that the entire season lives up to the title. “One thing the seasons have in common is they all take place from dusk till dawn. Within that time period all this is happening.
In a follow-up interview with a group of reporters after the session, Rodriguez specified just how much El Rey shows can pack into an episode. His Austin based Troublemaker Studios and Quick Draw Productions teams are used to working fast. “Well, we’re shooting about 7 or 8 days but the amount of work and quality that we’re getting doesn’t look like a normal [TV show],” explained Rodriguez. “Even on a relaxed day we’re getting 60-100 setups a day. We just know how to move very quickly and be very decisive.”
In the follow-up, Rodriguez also added that “From Dusk Till Dawn” will attempt to match the dark humor of the Tarantino scripted film. “In the original film, it’s Quentin’s humor. It’s basically Quentin’s script and his humor is a little different than mine. In my own movies that I write, sometimes mine is a little more comical. His are funny, but they’re freaking scary and intense. That’s what ‘Dusk Till Dawn’ brings and that’s where I really wanted to go back to some of that.”
In his introduction to the session, Rodriguez explained how the series came from ideas he could not fit into the film. “As a first show, I thought that would be a great way to introduce an audience to a network. It was known. People to this day come up to us and say, ‘We love From Dusk Till Dawn.’ Quentin’s script took place in this bar. I delved a little deeper into Mesoamerican mythologies, where a vampire culture could exist back then. I only hinted at it a little bit in the movie. That last tracking shot, the character of Salma I added in to make it a little richer. There was no time in the movie, so I wanted to go back and enrich that whole experience. If the film is the short story, this is the novel.”
There were two straight to video sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn, but those didn’t explore the mythology to which Rodriguez is referring. “The video sequels were separate stories,” related Rodriguez. “They weren’t really tied into the mythology we’re telling. These are ideas I always wanted to explore and now they’re finally paying off.”
“From Dusk Till Dawn” the series is also an example of an El Rey exclusive. Rodriguez and his collaborators wouldn’t put this on TV unless they could do it themselves. “No other network could have this show because Quentin and I would never let another station take it. We’re going to do shows that can only exist on El Rey that no one else can have.”
In the follow-up, I asked Rodriguez if he would consider series based on his other films like Machete, El Mariachi/Desperado or Spy Kids. “That’s possible,” he said. it’s not what we have lined up first. I’d love to do a Saturday morning section at some point that has Spy Kids and Shark Boy together because kids freaking love Shark Boy. It’s like I wish I could put that on my network but for right now we’re really going towards are demographic that we really want to hit. Then we can expand.”
The more adult oriented action films would fit the El Rey brand, but Rodriguez also doesn’t want to make the network all remakes of his movies. “Machete would fit and Mariachi would fit,” he agreed. “I guess we wouldn’t really go right to a Machete or a Desperado right away because I want to open up. I don’t want it to just be my properties, things that I would normally do. I really want to bring in a guy like Bob Orci and other filmmakers, people that are pitching me ideas for shows and really widen the breadth of the types of programming that we’ll have so people go, ‘Oh, it’s about that too.’ I’m the one starting the network but it’s really to call other people too. Using ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ as the lead kind of shows the level of quality we can achieve which people will then see the kind of budgets we have, the kind of shows they can do and people are already bringing more ideas just from the first preview they’ve seen.”
