In 2005, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez presented the world with two tween superheroes in the movie The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. The film has since gone on to become a cult classic, and a generation of viewers grew up with fond memories of the super-duo. Now, Rodriguez is bringing Sharkboy and Lavagirl back as adult heroes with a superpowered child of their own, in Netflix’s We Can Be Heroes. In an interview with ComicBook.com, Rodriguez explained he had long waited to bring the two characters back on film.
“I always wanted to do something again with [Sharklboy and Lavagirl] ’cause I just love those characters. They were like the original little kids’ superheroes. And I didn’t come up with it, my son did, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ That’s what a kid really loves, empowerment. And why not have shark strength and be half-boy, half-shark, or have the powers of lava? So, when Netflix actually asked me to come up with a movie that was original, not a remake or connected to anything else for their service, and the first thing I came up with was superhero kids and We Can Be Heroes, I had the title. I thought, ‘Okay, the parents get captured, kids are gonna save the world, type of thing.'”
We Can Be Heroes tells the story of an alien invasion where most of the world’s superhero population gets captured. Now it is up to the children of the heroes to band together to save the day. According to Robert Rodriguez, he looked to the MCU for inspiration, particularly Spider-Man, when planning his own take on an Avengers style kid’s movie.
“I delivered the script and we came up with a bunch of characters. It was like 16 kids with superpowers, but none of them had shark strength, which I kept wanting to steal from that movie because it was such a good one. It was like we cracked the code a long time ago. That was a good one and the lava one… They borrow Spider-Man sometimes for like an Avengers movie, so I would borrow the parents, have them be parents, that way I can have this little super-kid named Guppy who’s got both of their powers combined. Why not, instead of having two kids with the powers, have one kid with that combined power. So, they let us do that.”
While Taylor Lautner will not be reprising his iconic role as Sharkboy, Taylor Dooley will return as Lavagirl, now an adult superhero, and married to Sharkboy, who will be played by J.J. Dashnaw. Vivien Lyra Blair stars as Guppy, Sharkboy and Lavagirl’s daughter who combines her parents’ powers.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, We Can Be Heroes features Priyanka Chopra, Christian Slater, Pedro Pascal, Sung Kang, Boyd Holbrook, Taylor Dooley, YaYa Gosselin, Akira Akbar, Haley Reinhart, Andy Walken, Andrew Diaz, Brently Heilbron, Hala Finley, Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Lotus Blossom, Lyon Daniels, Nathan Blair, Vivien Lyra Blair, Adriana Barraza, Brittany Perry-Russell, Christopher McDonald and Dylan Henry Lau. The film premieres on January 1, 2021 on Netflix. This news originated at ComicBook.com.