Mexico Trilogy
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The "Mariachi Trilogy" or "Mexico Trilogy" is a series of movies: El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico all directed by Robert Rodriguez which tell the continuing story of the movies' main character "El Mariachi".
The trilogy originally was just to be one story, El Mariachi, with Desperado as a remake for American audiences. The idea was changed for Desperado to become El Mariachi's sequel, and Quentin Tarantino, a friend of Rodriguez, is reported to have said to Rodriguez that El Mariachi and Desperado were the start of his "Dollars Trilogy," the trilogy of movies directed by Sergio Leone consisting of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Rodriguez agreed on this idea, and the resulting conclusion of the trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, has many similarities with its spaghetti Western counterpart. This is often the explanation of, and reason behind, the inclusion of much more screen-time and story centered around different characters other than El Mariachi within Once Upon a Time in Mexico. However, this concept, little known to the movie's audience, is often a large criticism of the film, and it is seen therefore, by many, as a trilogy in which the films became 'weaker' over time.
The trilogy began with the 1992 low-budget production of El Mariachi. The film was made on a budget of only $7,000 USD using 16 millimeter cameras, was shot entirely in Mexico with a mostly amateur cast, and was originally intended to go directly to the Mexican home-video market (a process detailed in Rodriguez's book Rebel Without a Crew). It tells the story of an out of work musician (El Mariachi) traveling through Mexico. He arrives in a small border town, hoping to find work in some of the local Cantinas and clubs. Unfortunately for "El", local hoodlums mistake him for a recently escaped convict who has been hunting down his former associates with a guitar case filled with weapons. As the story progresses, "El" falls in love with a woman who helps him hide from those who are trying to kill him, and eventually sees her die at the hands of those same men. He seeks revenge for all he has been put through.
Executives at Columbia Pictures liked the film so much that they bought the rights to it for American distribution and eventually spent several times more than the film's original production budget on 35 millimeter film transfers, a marketing campaign and the eventual distribution/release of the film. It was so well received that they eventually chose to finance the second part of the trilogy, Desperado, and subsequently the final chapter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
Desperado continues El Mariachi's quest for revenge where he finds a new love and quenches his thirst for revenge.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico revolves around a failed coup attempt on the President of Mexico wherein El Mariachi is the hero who saves him.
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