Just days after Departed writer William Monahan and Martin Scorsese made James Toback cry bronzer-colored gravy tears (because they decided to remake The Gambler without calling him), it’s being reported that Monahan has been hired for another project: Sin City 2. “Hooray, that’s awesome!” said Bizarro Me.

Momentum has been building lately behind the long-in-development sequel to Sin City, which grossed a healthy $100 million worldwide in 2005. Rodriguez, who co-directed the original with Frank Miller (who scripted and authored the source material), said at Comic-Con in July that financing for the sequel had been arranged and shooting would begin as soon as a script could be locked, possibly by the end of this year.
Rodriguez indicated to THR during an interview at Comic-Con that actors playing characters that survived the first film are expected to return, and that because much of it is shot in pieces against green screen that scheduling shouldn’t be too difficult. [THR]

I hope you’ll excuse my lack of excitement, but that overwrought hunk of faux-artsy ball torture porn got old 35 minutes into the FIRST movie, and still managed to spawn more meathead, junior college imitators than Troy Duffy (see: Bunraku). High contrast, lots of shadow, the occasional color pop — really, we get it.

But as long as we’re shooting it on a green screen, maybe we could just get Andy Serkis to mo-cap all the characters. At least Jessica Alba’s part. That way, onscreen, you’d still see Jessica Alba, but it’d be Jessica Alba infused with the heart and soul of an actor’s performance.

Last night at Comic Con, where Vince was last seen challenging the cast of Glee to a jazz-hands-off, Robert Rodriguez and his new Castro hat dropped a major news bomb on his fans. Not only is he already hard at work on a Machete sequel (Machete Kills), but after that’s done and released, he’ll be giving us Machete Kills Again, which he referred to as a “space opera” or “Machete kills in space.” Funny, I remember watching the original and thinking, “Gee, this was a letdown this should be in outer space.”

On top of that, Rodriguez also said that he’s eager to get to work on Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For after he completes Spy Kids 4. The director claims that he has already written the Sin City sequel and that he’d like to get to work on it (in 3D, of course) this year. And on top of THAT, Rodriguez and Kevin Eastman announced that they are collaborating on a new Heavy Metal film, which David Fincher dropped out of in 2008.

So how the hell is Rodriguez getting all this work done, Indiewire? I mean, aside from the meth.

Already the owner of Troublemaker Studios, QuickDraw is just another avenue that buys Rodriguez his independence outside of the Hollywood system. “How to break into industry?,” he asked? “Rethink traditions. Having your own financing, you avoid the pain in the ass factor. Go right into how to get that idea out. It’s very important for a filmmaker to be part entrepreneur.” Like “Grindhouse” which spawned the career of “Hobo With A Shotgun” director Jason Eisener, Rodriguez said with “Heavy Metal” they’d also be holding a trailer contest—aspiring filmmakers take note.

Responded one of the fans in attendance, “I’m sorry, you said to rethink traditions and have your own financing? How do I get my own financing?” To which Rodriguez replied, “I’m sorry, I forgot the middle step – ???”

IESB today reports (based on what or whom it’s unclear) that The Weinstein Company has “lost the rights” (let them expire, I’m assuming) to Sin City 2.  ThePlaylist speculates on the possible causes:

Rodriguez recently admitted that “Sin City 2″ wasn’t on his short term agenda; “I always say [the film's] right around the corner, because that’s what everybody wants to hear and I like pleasing the audience. It might be a long corner.”
Actress Jamie King, who plays twins Goldie and Wendy in the original film, previously revealed a clash between the Weinsteins and Rodriguez: “[The Weinsteins] want to do weird things with the second one. Robert [Rodriguez] didn’t want to go down that route, so we’ve just been waiting ’till somebody knocked some sense into them, where we can do it the way we want to do it.”

Keep in mind, this is Robert Rodriguez, so the way he wanted it may have been “let my girlfriend Rose McGowan play every role.”  Whatever.  I enjoyed Sin City for about forty minutes and was bored after that.  Plus, it seemed to have a real vendetta against the crotch.  Every other scene was a guy getting punched in the junk or stabbed in the junk or someone’s junk getting run over by a car or a dog eating someone’s junk.  This summer… Sin City hates your crotch, I believe the commercial went.

UPDATE Wednesday pm: Looks like this story might be bogus, with Weinstein’s lawyers now contradicting it.  Luckily, putting a question mark at the end of the headline absolves me of all responsibility. And you can’t deny that their hats are indeed black.

Question marks in the headline can mean only one thing: it’s time to prognosticate! Will humans land on Mars?  Is purple the new pink? Would this monkey let me squeeze her tits for a banana?  No one knows for sure, and that means we’re free to speculate wildly! Yee haw!

I was already about halfway through writing this post when I clicked over to Durden to discover Mickey Rourke had also been busted for a DUI on a Vespa – synergy, baby!

My story is a rumor that Mickey Rourke is out of Sin City 2 because “Mickey doesn’t consider Rose McGowan to be a real actress.”  The nerve!  The chick from Jawbreaker?  Not a real actressI?

Anyway, Rourke’s feelings about McGowan are somewhat problematic, since he shares most of his scenes with her, and because she’s boning the director (Robert Rodriguez).  If worst comes to worst, I’m thinking they could just hire Nick Nolte and give him a bad facelift (like I did with my last rebound girlfriend).  Nolte and Rourke both share a certain je ne sais quois, and stench of liquor.