Of all the fake trailers that became the main attractions of Grindhouse, one of the most popular was Machete, starring Danny Trejo. It was a humorous take on exploitative ’70s films (back when the X rating was real), complete with explosions and topless girls. The trailer was so popular that it was attached to the Planet Terror DVD, though none of the others have been released.

When the trailer was first made, Robert Rodriguez admitted that it was a film he would enjoy making. He’d already accumulated 40 minutes of footage just from cutting the trailer together, so why not? He’d first started thinking about the screenplay back in 1993 after casting Trejo in Desperado: “So I wrote him this idea of a federale from Mexico who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the U.S. I had heard sometimes FBI or DEA have a really tough job that they don’t want to get their own agents killed on, they’ll hire an agent from Mexico to come do the job for $25,000. I thought, “That’s Machete. He would come and do a really dangerous job for a lot of money to him but for everyone else over here it’s peanuts.” But I never got around to making it.”

His chance has finally come, as audiences responded just how he hoped to the concept of Machete. Recently, Danny Trejo confirmed that Rodriguez was indeed planning to direct the film once he’d finished with another project. He also hinted that Dimension Films might actually consider turning Machete into a trilogy.

Brace yourselves for some serious revenge.

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