A New ’Spy Kids’ Movie Is Coming to Netflix
Today marks the 21st anniversary of the release of Spy Kids, the popular 2000s franchise about a family of spies who saves the world with elaborate gadgets, kung fu moves, and some surreal visuals and special effects. The film was a surprise blockbuster for director Robert Rodriguez, and turned him from an indie genre filmmaker to a hitmaker with broader appeal. Rodriguez turned Spy Kids into a franchise, directing three sequels over the next decade.
A few years after the series wound down, a Spy Kids animated series premiered on Netflix. And now Netflix says they’re going to “reimagine” the Spy Kids movie franchise, along with Rodriguez, who will return to write, produce, and direct this reboot. According to the official press release Rodriguez will “introduce the world to a new family of spies.”
The filmmaker, who recently wrapped work on The Book of Boba Fett series for Disney+, previously teamed with Netflix on We Can Be Heroes, which was a spinoff to another of the family-friendly action movies he made in the wake of Spy Kids’ success, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. (A sequel to We Can Be Heroes is supposedly also in development.)
This will be the first Spy Kids movie since 2011’s Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, which was by far the least successful film in the series. (It grossed just $80 million worldwide, compared to the $200 million the first Spy Kids made.) It was also shot in 3-D and presented in “4D” with “Aroma-Scope” — i.e. a scratch-and-sniff card — gimmicks that didn’t seem to connect with audiences. At this point, Spy Kids’ original stars, Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara, have long since aged out of their titles roles, although you could go the legacyquel route and have them playing the parents to their own respective families of Spy Kids now.