Cast of Robert Rodriguez's 'Machete' unveiled

From EW:
The confirmed cast of Robert Rodriguez’s (and protégé Ethan Maniquis’s) next movie, Machete, was announced in Variety today, and there are some unexpected names making the cut. Machete features Danny Trejo playing the title character, a Mexican Charles Bronson-type gun for hire — a character who appeared in a fake trailer for 2007’s Grindhouse. Starring alongside Trejo will be Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Nash Bridges co-stars Cheech Marin and Don Johnson, and in her first major film role in some time, Lindsay Lohan. The list puts to bed rumors that Jonah Hill would also join the cast. Machete is expected to hit screens next year.

Robert Rodriguez To Start 'Machete'

From Variety:

Robert Rodriguez is ready to cut a wide swathe, and his plans include re-launching the "Predator" franchise for Fox and co-directing "Machete."

For the later, the filmmaker will create a feature out of the blade- wielding antihero who appeared in a mock trailer that was part of "Grindhouse."

Rodriguez is eyeing a June start date in Austin for "Machete," a film that is financed and produced by Overnight Productions, with Danny Trejo starring as the title character.

Machete is a Mexican ex-Federale with a gift for wielding a blade, who hides out as a day laborer, who is double-crossed by a corrupt state senator.

Rodriguez wrote the script and will direct the film with Ethan Maniquis, his longtime editor. The film is being produced by Rodriguez, Rick Schwartz of Overnight Productions and Aaron Kaufman.

Not immediately clear is whether Rodriguez and Overnight will find a way to use the irresistible marketing slogan that appeared in the "Grindhouse" trailer: "This time, they fucked with the wrong Mexican." It is the first non-studio movie that Rodriguez has directed since "El Mariachi."

- The Monster

GRINDHOUSE: Eli Roth's Faux Trailer- "Thanksgiving"

This is Eli Roth's Faux Trailer that will be shown between "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof". Grindhouse opens today in theaters everywhere.

Directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez present two full-length movies in a new horror double feature. In Tarantino's "Death Proof," Austin's hottest DJ, Jungle Julia, sets out into the night to unwind with her two friends Shanna an Arlene. Covertly tracking their moves is Stuntman Mike, a scarred rebel leering from behind the wheel of his muscle car, revving just feet away.

In Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," two doctors find their graveyard shift inundated with townspeople ravaged by sores. Among the wounded is Cherry, a dancer whose leg was ripped from her body. As the invalids quickly become enraged aggressors, Cherry and her ex-boyfriend Wray lead a team of accidental warriors into the night.

Now enjoy Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" trailer.

Grindhouse Cut Scenes To Surface On DVD & Overseas

Grindhouse, the faux double feature of exploitation movies by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, will be released as separate films overseas, and several key cut scenes will be restored in the international versions, including Vanessa Ferlito's lapdance on Kurt Russell and a song by Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Other scenes that will be restored include a funeral scene involving Michael Parks and Marley Shelton, in which Parks improvises lines based on a poem by e.e. cummings, and a bedroom scene involving James Brolin, for which he gained nearly 30 pounds.

"I gained all this fricking weight, and it was literally just for that scene," Brolin said with a laugh. "My fat ass is in that scene, and they cut the frickin' scene, man." Brolin plays the villainous Dr. William Block in Rodriguez's half of the film, the SF zombie movie Planet Terror; Shelton plays Block's wife, Dr. Dakota Block. Parks plays Dakota's father, Earl McGraw.

Ferlito, who plays Arlene in Tarantino's Death Proof segment of Grindhouse, was more philosophical about her lost scene. "I just think it was a matter of time and getting the whole car chase really in," she said. "How could you cut that up? I mean, it is what it is, you know?" In the U.S. version of the movie, as Arlene is about to give Russell's Stuntman Mike his lapdance, the film cuts to a title card reading "missing reel."

Winstead, who plays Lee in Death Proof, says that she was originally supposed to sing along with the 1970s pop tune "Baby It's You" by Smith, which plays on the radio while she's riding in a car. "In the script, I was just singing along to the radio, and in the audition, [Tarantino] was like, 'Sing!' And so I started singing, and he let me keep singing, and ... he really loved my voice. So he turned it into this whole long scene where I'm singing, belting out the song as Kurt [Russell] is sort of creeping up on Rosario [Dawson]. ... And it was a really great moment, and I'm kind of bummed that it's not in the double-feature version, but it'll be in [the international version]."

The cut scenes may also make it onto DVD versions of the films.

Meanwhile, Variety reported that Tarantino may take an extended version of Death Proof to the Cannes Film Festival in May, where it could land a competition slot. Tarantino won Cannes' top prize in 1994 with Pulp Fiction, and his Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 were shown out of competition. Tarantino also served as president of the jury in 2004.

Planet Terror may be gunning for a berth at Cannes as well, the trade paper reported. Grindhouse opens April 6.

- The Monster