Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez appeared Yesterday at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival to give updates on several of his forthcoming projects, including the formation of his own studio for producing CGI-animated feature films called Quickdraw Animation. He also announced that he will be filming sequels to two of his previous hit movies this year.

Machete Kills, which we first announced here, will go into production in April and the long-delayed Sin City 2 is expected to film later this summer. In addition to those films Rodriguez also said that his animated Heavy Metal film finally has a finished script and is moving into the storyboard phase of pre-production, along with a family feature the director is hesitant to reveal the title because it would give away the concept.

While Rodriguez wouldn’t reveal what cast members of the original Machete and Sin City would be involved in the sequels he did vaguely state that whoever is eventually cast would be “of the same caliber and ecclecticism” as the casts of their predecessors. The Texas-based independent filmmaker also noted that Quickdraw Animation, which would operate separately from his live-action production company Troublemaker Productions, has found a way to compress the schedule of making a CGI-animated film, something that typically takes up to four years from concept to final film.

Knowing how fast the director likes to work it’s very likely we’ll get two or three new Robert Rodriguez movies in the next year or so. I’m very curious as to which of Sin City creator Frank Miller‘s original stories will be adapted for Sin City 2. It’s been long rumored that “A Dame to Kill For” would be given the cinematic treatment and Miller would write some original stories for the film. Even more interesting will be seeing if any classic stories from Heavy Metal will make it into the animated movie or if any of the iconic artists who worked on the adult magazine will have their styles emulated in the animation.

[Source: Superhero Hype]