Spy Kids: Armageddon director explains why reboot didn’t bring back original actors

❘ Published: 2023-09-24T17:52:30

Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara in Spy Kids

Dimension Films

The director of Spy Kids: Armageddon recently revealed why he didn’t bring back the franchise’s original stars.

Since its premiere in 2001, the Spy Kids franchise has seen four installments, with a fifth one just recently premiering this year.

The original film followed siblings Carmen and Juni Cortez as they discovered that their parents, Gregorio and Ingrid, were spies. It was then up to save them after they were kidnapped by a corrupt children’s show host.

While the franchise has seen massive success, the original leg of films ended in 2011. However, it was revived by Netflix this year. The new film didn’t bring back either of the original spy kids and now the director has revealed why he opted not to bring them aboard.

Spy Kids 5 director wanted to start “fresh” with the franchise

During an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Robert Rodriguez, who wrote and directed all five films, revealed why he didn’t bring back Alex PenaVega and Daryl Sabara — the original spy kids.

“I wanted to re-establish a new family,” Rodriguez explained. “Because it’d been so long [since 2011’s All the Time in the World], it was important to just start the franchise fresh and then go from there.”

Rodriguez went on to say that he wasn’t opposed to bringing PenaVega and Sabara back and “connect the worlds.” He added, “It could still be in the same world, so if we get to make more films, there easily could be legacy characters that come back.”

Spy Kids: Armageddon — which was released through Netflix — sees a new pair of young siblings teaming up to save the world after accidentally helping a powerful game developer unleash a computer virus that gave him control of all technology.

Spy Kids: Armageddon is currently available to stream on Netflix. You can check out our review of the movie here and more of our Netflix coverage below: