Robert Rodriguez’s Machete to Swing for Fox

Rodriguez had made the fake trailer into a real movie outside the studio system. With help from Rick Schwartz’s Overnight Productions, Rodriquez indie financed Machete with $20 million from selling international rights to Sony and making some other global sales and another $5 million he borrowed. Rodriguez not only wrote and produced the pic, but he also co-directed it with Ethan Maniquis. It stars an eclectic cast (to put it mildly) of Robert De Niro, Lost’s Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, and Danny Trejo. With the picture now in the editing room, Rodriguez and his longtime agent WME’s Robert Newman (who’s been there from the start of the writer-director’s career) decided to look for domestic

All six interested studios screened about 15 to 30 minutes of footage. Newman’s proposal was for $9 million upfront, no P&A commitment but the guarantee of a wide release, and a big backend gross participation for Rodriguez. Both Fox and Paramount said yes, and then, in an unusual move, Newman went back to the two studios and asked for more gross percentage and an overall production deal for Rodriguez.