Rodriguez in union trouble... again. 

Rodriguez in union trouble... again.

BIG labor dispute brewing up within the U.S. film business, and once again the man at the center is perrenial do-it-yourself'er Robert Rodriguez, late of the "Spy Kids" and "El Mariachi" trilogies.

IMDB.com & Studio Briefing put it like this:

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/#3

Unless RR resolves this and fast, it's going to be a good-sized industry news story with both the fandom AND the studios trying to put two different spins on the issue and it's going to be hard to sort out what exactly is going on.

So lemme make it easy for you :)

Rodriguez prefers to do everything on his own, his book (which I reccommend) reads like a Gospel of self-sufficiency. He likes to do his own directing, editing, FX and score as much as possible; and as a result usually brings in expensive-looking films on a scale budget. His fans generally dig this, as it means we generally get "100% undilluted" director's vision from his work.

Industry UNIONS, on the other hand, have never been exactly thrilled with the way Rodriguez works. The reason for this is fairly obvious: "One-man-army" filmmakers bring in their films under budget in large part because the studio isn't paying the automatic-rate salary for the union workers who'd be filling the various tasks otherwise.

The studios are rock-and-a-hard-place about this: Rodriguez is a proven hitmaker who brings in moneymaking product often for nearly half what others might've "charged," so they like that. BUT the same studios also recognize that not EVERYONE (in fact, almost NO ONE) else works in RR's lone wolf (he calls it "Mariachi-style,") manner; so they need to take the union's opinion on things like this seriously: A studio or production house that winds up on an industry labor group's "naughty-list" can, potentially, kiss their help goodbye entirely if they've been "naughty enough."

All of this, of course, is really just so much sturm and drang until Rodriguez actually BREAKS a Union/Industry rule; and then the figurative wrath of heaven comes down on him. It happened once before, and the resulting firestorm nearly shut down production of his Tarantino-scripted vampire saga "From Dusk Till Dawn."

And now it's threatening to happen again. Rodriguez is currently at work on "Sin City," an adaptation of a well-regarded Frank Miller comic book series from a few years back. RR want's Miller, who's heavily involved in the production, to have a co-director credit on the project. Problem: The DGA (Directors Guild of America) union, of which virtually all Hollywood directors are members of, mandate a "one-director-credit-per-film" rule.

Basically, rules like this are in place to ensure that the "directed by" credit doesn't get tossed around lightly by the studios (say, by a zealous producer who decides he deserves a co-credit) and potentially dillute the importance (and possibly the monetary value) of actual directors. Wavers are available on a case-by-case basis, but when he applied for one RR was denied. His response: He's resigned from the Guild, disallowing himself their protection in his business dealings on the film but also freeing him from the one-director rule.

Thus far, RR's resignation (the most high-profile of it's kind) hasn't harmed "Sin City's" production overall, but it's creating a HUGE potential problem for his NEXT job, the big-budget actioner "A Princess of Mars." Pic is an "it's about freakin' time" adaptation of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel where a Civil War soldier named John Carter is transported to the Red Planet, where he becomes a hero amid alien battles and falls in love with the titular princess. The book and it's subsequent sequels are considered classics of pulp literature and required reading in much of Geekdom, and filmmakers have been trying and failing to get in onscreen since the material was new (pre-WWII.)

The Geek Community went into near-joygasm over the news that the film would finally be made, (it's widely being seen as part of the literal wave of geek-centric scifi/fantasy greenlighting that has followed the astonishing success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy,) and by fan-favorite Rodriguez no less. Subsequent news that one of the Web's most infamous Geekdom figures, AICN's Harry Knowles, had become a co-producer on the project. However you feel about Knowles, the message to movie geeks worldwide was clear enough: One of the wish-dream projects of scifi/fantasy was finally happening, and the good guys were in charge.

Problem: Rodriguez apparently doesn't plan on returning to the DGA as a member after Sin City is over. Paramount, like most other major studios, has an agreement policy with the DGA about only employing directors who are themselves guild members. RR may have been planning to do the WORK on the film on his own, but Paramount and their investors would be the one's PAYING for it all to happen, so he works at their discretion. If he doesn't re-up with the guild, the project may cease to be.

That would be a terrible shame on all fronts, of course, but especially for the fans who've been waiting for this to happen for too long already. But there you have it.

The end to this mess is still a little far off, though, but if you're a fan of anyone or anything involved here this will be an important event no matter how it goes down. Make no mistake, this is a BIG dispute involving a BIG director, BIG studios, a BIG union and a movie with BIG financial expectations attached to it, and the end result will ripple through the whole biz.

So, naturally, what you should do is check back here often for updates an analysis as I get `em :)