I have a child-like imagination – I’m inspired by children
Robert Rodriguez, who gave us Sharkboy and Lavagirl, tells LAURA HARDING why he is reprising them and bringing us a new generation of superheroes
ROBERT RODRIGUEZ never planned to make a sequel to his 2005 children’s film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. The 52-year-old filmmaker, responsible for adult fare such as Sin City, From Dusk Til Dawn, Machete and Desperado, has also made children’s films such as Spy Kids and its many sequels and the aforementioned big screen hit about a young boy recruited by his imaginary friends Sharkboy and Lavagirl to help save their planet.
But when he was approached by Netflix to make a new family film, he couldn’t help but remember all the fun stuff he came up with 15 years ago.
“It wasn’t meant to be a sequel at all,” he says frankly.
“In fact the order I got from Netflix, they came to me and said: ‘We love Spy Kids and Sharkboy-type movies work well on our service, kids watch those over and over. We need original family, live action.”’
It was not a coincidence that Disney+ was about to launch at the time, with its wealth of family friendly content, and Netflix was keen to step up its game, he adds.
What he came up with is not strictly a sequel to the original film, but there is some distinct overlap.
In We Can Be Heroes, the Earth is protected by The Heroics: a team of superheroes whose members include the amazing
Miracle Guy (Boyd Holbrook), Tech-No (Christian Slater) and Ms Vox (Haley Reinhart). Alien invaders capture The Heroics and warn they intend to take over the planet.
Ms Granada (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), director of The Heroics programme, gathers together the fallen superheroes’ children in an underground bunker for their safety. But the youngsters devise a way to rescue their parents.
Taylor Dooley reprises her role as Lavagirl, and Sharkboy is concealed under a helmet so you can’t see that Taylor Lautner has been replaced by JJ Dashnaw.
Robert says he prefers to make films for streaming than the cinema: “I would much rather make it for Netflix than for the theatre because kids watch them so many times.
“They can’t drive themselves to the theatre, they have to wait to get it on video to watch it again and again and that doesn’t help our box office, so I would much rather it be on Netflix where they can just hit it again and again.
“So I came up with an original story of superheroes, an Avengers-type superhero team but you’ve never heard of any of these people, Blinding Fast, Miracle Guy. “So I thought I will wait ‘til they approve the movie and then I was going to ask them if we could go to the other studio and borrow Sharkboy and Lavagirl to have them on the parent team because then people will know those names, even if they never saw the movie.
“Even after 15 years, you’ve heard of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, and that would give it a legitimate feel.”
“But also, selfishly, I created so many cool special powers for all the kids but the whole time I just wished I could give one shark strength, because that was a great power, kids love that from Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
“Girls loved when someone has lava strength so I thought if I can borrow the parents, then I can have a kid that has got all the powers in one and I can make it be a little girl and it’s a new original character called Guppy, who has got shark strength and lava strength all combined.
“So it’s not really a sequel,” he concludes. “It’s not really from the world, that was a dream world type movie, but I borrowed those characters and shoehorned them into this world of We Can Be Heroes and it works really well, I think, getting to have one of the kids be a super kid, a little hybrid.”
That hybrid super kid is played by the adorable Vivien Lyra Blair, who audiences might recognise from the previous Netflix hit Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock. The eight-year-old actress charms as Guppy, the offspring of two superheroes who is wrangling with her own powers.
“I used to play this card game with Robert called avocado smash,” she remembers, “and it was my favourite thing in the world. So every time Robert wanted me to get excited, he would say ‘Guppy, think avocado smash’ and I would get super excited and I had a little avocado smash push.”
Vivien is too young to remember Sharkboy and Lavagirl from its first outing, but she did watch the film when she auditioned for the role – and again when she won the part.
“We had snacks like popcorn and it was very fun and that same day I learned I had gotten my next belt on taekwondo, so it was an exciting day for me, and we had this big party with all my favourite food and watched Sharkboy and Lavagirl again and all that kind of stuff.”
“Family films are my favourite,” Robert enthuses.
“I’m from a family of 10 kids, I have five kids of my own, and you get to use the totality of your creativity.
“I have a very child-like imagination, I’m always inspired by children, my siblings, so these really use all your imagination.
“I only stopped making them because it just didn’t seem to make sense to make them for the theatre because parents would take their kids once and even if the kids loved it, they would say: ‘Wait until it comes out on video and then you can watch it 100 times.’
“I would totally just keep making family films for streaming services only because then kids have instant access.
“When my daughter wants to watch Glitter Force (a Japanese anime series also known as Smile PreCure!) I don’t have to take her to a theatre, she can just sit there and click in and watch as many times as she wants, it’s a great babysitter, so that is really what made me realise that is where the audiences is for family films, especially ones aimed towards children.
“I make these movies very fast-paced so they just want to see it again, they aren’t slogging through a story that takes a long time to get where it’s going, they are so energised they want to put it on repeat, that is the idea.”
We Can Be Heroes is streaming now on Netflix.