A Dame to Kill For?

In 2005, Robert Rodriguez changed the way we looked at comic book movies forever with Sin City, his picture-perfect adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel series. Such a passion project it was for Rodriguez that he even resigned from the Director’s Guild so he could share directing credit with Miller himself. The movie was a box office success, making $158 million worldwide off a $40 million budget, but more importantly, it gave us a thrillingly unique example of how green-screen technology could be utilized – put simply, you’d never seen a graphic novel come to life quite like this. Naturally, with a wealth of Sin City material still available to them, Rodriguez and Miller would want to make a sequel to their hit movie. And they did, although it took a whole lot longer to come to life than anyone initially expected. Hope you’re ready to travel back to that hard-luck metropolis known as Basin City, because we’re going to find out WTF Happened to Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

So confident were Rodriguez and Miller that they were going to get going on a sequel to Sin City that they announced work on it before their first flick even came out. When the film had its premiere at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, Rodriguez stated he and Miller were going to adapt the latter’s famed Sin City book A Dame to Kill For. The plan was always to bring back some of the first film’s most memorable characters whether they survived or died, as the new film would serve as both prequel and sequel to its predecessor. 

In March of 2007, Frank Miller said during an interview that he and Rodriguez had gotten the script just about ready and were planning on shooting it in June. Things did not work out that way, as it would be several more years of “will they or won’t they” pseudo-updates on the anticipated follow-up, but it’s clear looking back that Rodriguez and Miller were always eager to get working on it. 

In 2007, Rodriguez was so confident in the imminent production of Sin City 2 that he was already looking ahead to part 3. The director revealed he and Miller were planning on adapting “Hell and Back,” the longest and one of the most popular of the “Sin City” stories for the third film. Rodriguez mentioned he was envisioning Johnny Depp to play “Hell and Back’s” protagonist, Wallace. As he’d wanted Depp to star as Jackie Boy in the first film but missed out, Rodriguez saw Wallace as the perfect vehicle for the actor. Additionally, Rodriguez mentioned he wanted to bring longtime friend and collaborator Antonio Banderas into the fold and was looking at the many characters in Sin City to find a perfect fit for him… Well, as of this writing, Sin City 3 does not look like it’s in the works.

As for “Dame to Kill For,” it would take several more years before things really got moving on the sequel.

In August 2011, a little over six years since the first film’s release, it was announced Oscar-winning scribe William Monahan, best known as the writer of “The Departed”, had come aboard to work on the long-gestating Sin City 2 screenplay. At the time, Rodriguez said Monahan was brought in to – quote – “round out” the script and “solve some problems.” It seemed as though connecting the various stories and characters together were the main issues Monahan was brought in to correct. Rodriguez seemed confident the script was just about in fighting shape and said they were hopefully going to get ready for production soon after. Alas, it would take a few more years for that to come to pass. 

It took almost another year, but finally in April of 2012 – almost exactly seven years to the date after the first film’s release – Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was officially announced. In the press release, Rodriguez said the long wait was thanks to getting together something that was truly exceptional, something that would be worth the wait for the fans hungry for another trip to Basin City. The expectation was for the film to go into production summer of 2012 with many familiar faces returning, to be joined by some intriguing new ones. So who would be inhabiting Sin City this time around?

The familiar faces included Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Jamie King, Powers Boothe and Rosario Dawson. Several characters from the first film would return but with new faces: Dennis Haysbert replaced Michael Clarke Duncan as the brutish Manute due to Clarke’s tragic, untimely passing. Jamie Chung replaced Devon Aoki thanks to the latter’s pregnancy. Jeremy Piven replaced Michael Madsen in the role of Bob.  And Josh Brolin was now tackling the role of Dwight, played by Clive Owen in the first film – although this casting made sense thanks to the fact the character undergoes radical facial reconstruction at the end of his segment in the new film. Owen was originally supposed to return as the transformed Dwight at the end, but scheduling would not permit it, hence Brolin portrayed the character post-surgery as well. 

A new and important character written specifically for the film was Johnny, a wily gambler on a mission to topple one of Sin City’s most corrupt figures. Joseph Gordon-Levitt snagged the role after allegedly coming very close to playing Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy – some reports even speculated he turned down the Marvel movie in favor of the Rodriguez one.   Ouch.

As for the most crucial new character, seductive psychopath Ava Lord, a handful of names had been attached off and on over the years. The most prominent being Angelina Jolie, who’d been linked to the role going all the way back to when the first film came out. In 2007, Rosario Dawson said Rodriguez was waiting for the then-pregnant Jolie to have her baby before he could move ahead on the film. Jolie herself commented on the speculation and noted her interest in tackling such a sexy role post-baby, joking that it would be a nice movie to do after her child’s birth. While she did indeed seem like perfect casting at the time, Jolie never did venture to Basin City. 

The most prominent name linked to Ava Lord aside from Angelina was Rachel Weisz, then best known for her work in the first two Mummy films. How close that came to being a reality isn’t for us to say, but regardless it did not come to fruition. Supposedly Rodriguez’s old pal Salma Hayek was also in the running, but that didn’t end up happening either. In January of 2013, it was officially announced the role had gone to Eva Green, with the press release colorfully noting Ava Lord was “every man’s glorious dream come true, and also every man’s darkest nightmare.” 

With the cast set, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was supposed to hit theaters in October 2012, but while shooting was still going on during the summer, the release date was pushed back almost a full year, to August 2014, a little under ten years since the first film.

The film generated some early controversy – or perhaps positive buzz – that June when the MPAA banned a sexy poster of Eva Green that they felt showed too much skin. Officially, the reason was for “curve of under breast and dark nipple/areola circle visible through sheer gown.” To which we ask, “and that’s an issue because..?” 

For her part, Green didn’t understand the controversy and noted if people had a problem with the poster then they’d probably have a problem with the film, which she didn’t see as being exploitive in the slightest. As for the fact that she’s nude throughout most of the movie, Green noted she didn’t think it was gratuitous, insisting the way Ava uses her sexuality is an essential part of her devious character. 

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For finally arrived in theaters on August 22nd, 2014. Perhaps it was that nine-year wait, but the sequel landed with a brutal thud, opening in eighth place with only $6.5 million. Considering the budget this time was a lot bigger, reportedly around $65 million, that thud truly hurt. Even the Weinstein Company, the distributor, couldn’t sugarcoat their disappointment, with the head of theatrical distribution admitting they weren’t prepared for such a level of rejection from the public. 

The bombing of A Dame to Kill For stirred up some hurt feelings, and a series of lawsuits followed the dismal opening. A year after its release, Robert Rodriguez sued some of the producers of the film for $7.7 million, claiming they had committed a breach of contract by not paying money owed to him and his company. He dropped the lawsuit several months later, but the same producers turned right around and sued him back to the tune of $20 million, for cost overruns and production delays allegedly caused by Rodriguez on the film, which they believably claimed they made no money on. Of course, it didn’t seem many people did. 

Another lawsuit was brought by those same producers in 2019, this time against the Weinstein Company, claiming the distributor was too busy promoting their film The Giver when they had agreed to put more resources into the PR for A Dame to Kill For. The suit alleged the Weinsteins had promised to spend $30 million on Sin City but only pledged about 10% of that. They were ultimately awarded $17.4 million in damages.

None of those legal shenanigans might have been necessary had the film been a hit, but it most certainly was not. So what went wrong? Too many years between the films? Had the first film’s novel look become stale? Was there never much of an interest in a follow-up to begin with beyond those hardcore fans of the books? 

There have been rumors of a Sin City TV show floating around for a while; we’re still waiting to see if that pans out as of this video. As with any metropolis filled with sordid characters and their unseemly deeds, there are millions of stories waiting to be told in Sin City. The question is, do we want to hear them?