This weekend Robert Rodriguez will finally fulfill a promise he made three years ago when he filmed a trailer for a fake movie named Machete. This trailer was included in the theatrical Grindhouse experience -- a three-hour tribute to exploitation cinema from directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.
While Grindhouse did not fare well theatrically, the movie eventually found its audience on DVD and Blu-ray -- becoming a modest cult hit and paving the way for Machete to actually be made into a movie.
Danny Trejo stars as a Federale who is hired to assassinate a senator. When he is double-crossed, he finds himself up against a wide assortment of bad guys and killers. Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan and Don Johnson co-star.
Something I'm surprised more people aren't talking about is the fact that Danny Trejo's Machete character didn't make his first appearance in the fake trailer filmed for Grindhouse. Trejo previously played a character named Machete in the three Spy Kids movies Rodriguez filmed earlier this decade. Trejo's character was uncle to the films' spy characters.
While I'm willing to concede the idea that Trejo may in fact be playing a separate character named Machete (he did play two different hired killers in Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy), the idea that a bloody mexplotation film character could have his origins in a children's movie is too good to not believe.
While television may get all the recognition for the amount of spin-offs spawned on the small screen, there is a long history of characters crossing into their own film after first appearing in another.
There are the obvious superhero spin-offs such as the Jennifer Garner-starring Elektra that spawned from Daredevil, the solo Wolverine spin-off from the X-Men franchise and Supergirl (you can probably guess where that movie had its origins).
Movie spin-offs aren't just limited to the cape and tights crowd, though. Tommy Lee Jones' U.S. Marshals character from The Fugitive was so well received, Jones would later return to the character in U.S. Marshals, a film that saw him hunting an escaped and wrongfully accused Wesley Snipes.
A lot of times comedies resort to spin-offs when they cannot attract the actor who made the original film so memorable. For example, Steve Carell played a small role in Bruce Almighty. When Jim Carey either did not wish to return for the sequel or his asking price was too high, Carell (at that point on the rise toward stardom) stepped in for a much larger role in the film Evan Almighty.
The film Coming to America is a somewhat spin-off of the earlier Eddie Murphy comedy Trading Places. In Coming to America, audiences are given a glimpse at the future of Trading Places' Duke brothers (played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) as the two can be seen homeless and sleeping on the streets of Queens.
Much like television shows test characters out on existing programs before giving them their chance in the spotlight, movies will do the same. Sometimes these spin-offs are the result of lucky accidents and surprising audience response (as was the case with U.S. Marshals) and sometimes these spin-offs are well-planned marketing tactics (as was the case with The Scorpion King, an action movie starring The Rock that featured a character inserted into The Mummy Returns with the express intent of being showcased in a later film).
Whatever the case, few spun-off characters will have the longevity that Danny Trejo's Machete will probably enjoy. Rodriguez can't stop casting Trejo in his films. Chances are good that audiences haven't seen the last of the blade-wielding Federale.
* E-mail Robert Saucedo at robertsaucedo2500@yahoo.com.
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