Hypnotic Director Robert Rodriguez talks new twisted film, and gives a promising update on Alita: Battle Angel 2.
Robert Rodriquez Gives Promising Alita: Battle Angel 2 Update
During our interview for his new film, Hypnotic, we asked Director Robert Rodriguez about the possibility of an Alita: Battle Angel 2 film. The first film is wildly popular and fans have been waiting with baited breath for a sequel.
Rodriquez says, “I’d love that too,” before going on to add “We’re always talking about that. We would love for that to happen. We appreciate everybody who carries the torch for that one because we definitely want to make one.”
Robert Rodriguez Talks Hypnotic
Mama’s Geeky: Where did the concept for Hypnotic come from?
Robert Rodriquez: It came a long time ago. I was watching Vertigo, which had just been rediscovered, restored, released on DVD. I was always a Hitchcock fan. I always liked how economical his stuff was with $2 camera tricks and edits that he would do to make his visuals come to life. When I saw Vertigo, I thought here’s another one, with a major star, that has a lot of twists and turns, and it has a really compelling one word title — Vertigo, Psycho, Spellbound, Frenzy.
If he kept making movies for another 10 years, what’s another title he would have? Hypnotic popped in my head. So okay, but what does that mean? I don’t want to make a movie about hypnosis. Sounds cool. Maybe it’s somebody with the ability beyond that. Maybe you don’t know what their ability even is because it keeps growing as the movie goes on till the very last frame, and you don’t realize they’re that powerful. That could be fun.
Also the reason I kept coming back to it is because it reminded me of what we do as storytellers and as filmmakers. We create a hypnotic construct for an audience. Whenever we make a movie, they buy a ticket for it, they come and sit, they know it’s an actor, they know it’s a script, but they believe it. If you do it well enough, they believe it so much they cry or laugh. They are invested emotionally and tell their friends to go see it. They may even love the characters. Those characters are more real than their own family members. Like, Baby Yoda.
They are so invested in them. I thought let’s do that without making the movie about filmmaking. I get to do that in this film, pull the layers back to where it’s very meta, but the audience is now watching the movie with Ben going, Oh, I’ve just been in a construct along with his character. I didn’t even know it because I was just believing what I was seeing. I believe what he was telling me.
Mama’s Geeky: If you were a hypnotic, do you think you would ever use it?
Robert Rodriquez: I would use it. The question is would I use it for good or evil. That was the whole idea. That’s what I thought of the title. I said, What does it mean? I thought, oh, it’s someone who can’t be caught. I could say, Hey, give me the keys to your car and your bank accounts and you drive off and you never remember meeting me.
I thought that’s a great villain. There’s probably a bunch of these that exist at the 2% level that you just never meet. You’ll never catch. You never knew they even did anything because they just live on top of the world. I thought that would be a really cool story to make about people like that.
Mama’s Geeky: Without spoilers, it feels like there could be another one. Do you have plans for a sequel?
Robert Rodriguez: I didn’t know if people would stick around long enough to see the little stinger. Yeah, I would love to, hopefully. I hope I didn’t put it too far into the credits that people are already out of the theater and they don’t see it. But yeah, I would love to do another one.
NEXT: Hypnotic Cast Interview
About Hypnotic
Determined to find his missing daughter, Austin detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) instead finds himself spiraling down a rabbit hole while investigating a series of reality-bending bank robberies where he will ultimately call into question his most basic assumptions about everything and everyone in his world.
Aided by Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), an unnervingly gifted psychic, Rourke simultaneously pursues and is pursued by a lethal specter (William Fichtner) – the one man he believes holds the key to finding the missing girl – only to discover more than he ever bargained for.
Hypnotic hits theaters everywhere on May 12th!
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Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.