Take A Trip To 'Sin City'
March 16, 2005
Crawling with hardened criminals, crooked cops and sexy dames, 'Frank Miller's Sin City,' in theaters April 1, is chock full of dark characters looking for revenge or redemption. All this week, ET has the exclusives, including never-before-seen clips!
Based on the cult series of graphic novels created, written and illustrated by FRANK MILLER, the film contains three stories that take place in the titular, fictional city, translated from Miller's Sin City, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard.
"I started looking at it as instead of trying to turn it into a movie, which would be terrible, let's take cinema and try to make it into this book," says director ROBERT RODRIGUEZ (the 'El Mariachi' and 'Spy Kids' trilogies), who co-directs with Miller to bring the graphic novel to life. "The mediums really are very similar; they're just snapshots of movement."
Hollywood's hottest stars clamored to be part of 'Sin City,' including BRUCE WILLIS, JESSICA ALBA, CLIVE OWEN, ROSARIO DAWSON, BRITTANY MURPHY, MICHAEL CLARK DUNCAN and ELIJAH WOOD, and the result is this year's most enviable cast.
"When we started casting all these parts, strange things started happening; people showed up who looked like my drawings," adds Miller. "In a lot of ways this movie's quite literally like having a dream come true."
But some who made the cut found themselves looking a lot more like their comic-book counterparts than they expected, some with the help of extensive make-up and prosthetics. Like MICKEY ROURKE, who plays Marv, an outcast on a mission to save the life of his one, true love (played by JAIME KING).
"When I was looking through the comic book, I didn't know which character [Rodriguez] wanted me to do," says Rourke. "Then I saw it was the character of Marvin, I got really excited cause it was this far-out lookin' cat that had some interesting things to say and do, and I thought, 'Wow, this is gonna be interesting and fun,' and its been a real hoot."
Anti-hero Rourke is somewhat recognizable despite his sloping forehead. So is bad guy BENICIO DEL TORO. NICK STAHL, on the other hand, is completely unrecognizable under tons of make-up as Yellow Bastard -- and the only character rendered in color (yellow, naturally) in the black-and-white movie palette (save for some surprising splashes of red).
JOSH HARTNETT, who gets to keep his good-looking mug intact, says he was hand-picked by Rodriguez before the project was even a go. "Robert just basically came to me and said, "I'm doing this graphic novel, makin' it into a movie, I don't have the rights to it, and I need somebody to come down and convince [Miller] to let us go ahead with it."
With the help of willing stars and some preliminary shots to show Miller what the final product would look like, Rodriguez clinched the deal and the rest, as they say, is history!
Watch ET all this week for 'Sin City' exclusives!
http://et.tv.yahoo.com/movies/2005/03/16/sincitybts/