Priyanka Chopra is starring in Robert Rodriguez and Netflix’s superhero movie, We Can Be Heroes. Over the course of his moviemaking career, Rodriguez has become known for oscillating back and forth between bright and bubbly kids fare (Spy Kids, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, Shorts) and extremely violent, pulpy genre movies aimed at older audiences (From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City, Machete). Every so often, though, he makes something in-between, like his big-budget Alita: Battle Angel adaptation from earlier this year.
With an Alita sequel looking unlikely for the moment, Rodriguez is turning his attention to another original kids project. The film in question, We Can Be Heroes, is a superhero movie and is being developed for Netflix, rather than a regular Hollywood studio. It appears to be coming together fairly quickly too, as Rodriguez (who is writing, directing, and producing) has already started rolling camera.
According to THR, Quantico veteran Chopra is among the names starring in We Can Be Heroes. The film revolves around a group of aliens who invade earth and kidnap its superheroes, leaving it to the heroes’ kids to join forces, rescue their parents, and save the planet on their own. In a separate report, Deadline revealed production is currently underway in Texas, with a cast that further includes Christian Slater (Mr. Robot), YaYa Gosselin (The Purge), and Akira Akbar (Captain Marvel), among others.
We Can Be Heroes’ premise is reminiscent of the setup for Rodriguez’s original Spy Kids movie, in which a brother-sister duo team up to save their parents after discovering they’re really secret agents who’ve been captured. Netflix has even produced a computer-animated Spy Kids series (titled Spy Kids: Mission Critical) based on Rodriguez’s live-action franchise, so there’s already a history of sorts between the streamer and filmmaker. Rodriguez’s previous kids films have also been the type of mid-range budgeted offerings that Hollywood studios have been focusing on less and less in recent years - making Netflix all the more logical a place for We Can Be Heroes to hang its hat.
Interestingly, in a time when superheroes rule the box office and are popping up all over the place on TV (streaming services included), Netflix has started to shy away from them, following the demise of its MCU Defenders TV series. Instead, they’ve devoted far more resources to tapping into the under-served audiences for rom-coms (with films like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Always Be My Maybe) and continued to develop prospective awards season contenders like Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, following their multiple Oscar wins for last year’s Roma. We Can Be Heroes sounds pretty different from the rest of the superhero crowd, which may be another part of the reason why the streamer decided to make an exception in this case.
We Can Be Heroes doesn’t have a release date yet.
Source: THR, Deadline
