Spy Kids Reboot in the Works with Original Director Robert Rodriguez

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Spy Kids is back!

Robert Rodriguez, who directed the original 2001 film, is set to write and direct a reboot of the film for Spyglass Media, PEOPLE confirms.

The new movie, like its predecessor, will focus on a multi-cultural family of international spies, according to Variety who was first to report the news.

The 2001 film starring Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas followed brother and sister Carmen and Juni Cortez (Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara) who are ignorant of their parents' work for the Organization of Super Spies.

Banderas and Gugino respectively played Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez, Carmen and Juni's parents. When the two are kidnapped, it's up to their kids to save them. The movie also featured Rodriguez's frequent collaborator Danny Trejo (Machete) as the kids' uncle.

The film grossed $147 million at the global box office when it debuted in theaters. The success led to three sequels, 2002's Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, 2003's Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and 2011's Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.

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Rodriguez, who has directed Sin City, Alita: Battle Angel, We Can Be Heroes and From Dusk till Dawn among others, opened up in July 2020 about the challenges he faced while filming Spy Kids.

The filmmaker, who also wrote the movie, said during a virtual panel at Comic-Con@Home that his greatest creative victory was convincing the studio behind the children's film to let him have Latin characters lead the hit movie.

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"For me it was a big victory … to have the kids in Spy Kids be a Latin family. The studio was like, 'Why are you making them Latin, though, why don't you just make them American?" he said, as reported by IndieWire. "They are American, they're based on my family."

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"There were no roles being written for Latins at that time, back in 1999, nor were they being cast. If I wasn't Latin, I would have given up the fight," the director said. "When you're doing anything that's new, this just happens to be about diversity, you're going to get a question and you have to have a good answer. They weren't being d— or anything, they've just never seen it before."

In the end, Rodriguez, who was born in San Antonio to parents of Mexican descent and was inspired by his own uncle's work in the FBI to write the film, convinced the studio by pointing to another major franchise that was a hit in America.

"You don't have to be British to enjoy James Bond. By being more specific, you're being more universal," Rodriguez said. "For those who are Latin, in particular, it means so much. It changes their whole future about what is possible."