Having tackled westerns, epic sci-fi, and children’s films, among other genres, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez returns with Hypnotic, a mystery thriller he’s calling “Hitchcock on steroids.” While preparing for the film’s theatrical release on May 12, Rodriguez spoke with Collider’s Steve Weintraub about bringing his vision, 20 years in the making, to audiences despite the numerous setbacks.

Hypnotic stars Ben Affleck and Alice Braga in a thriller the co-writer and director sprinkled with elements of science fiction and noir. While Detective Danny Rourke (Affleck) is attempting to cope with the trauma of his missing daughter, a mysterious man (William Fichtner) involved in a bank heist leads Rourke to believe this “hypnotic” has something to do with his daughter’s case. When he enlists the help of psychic, Diana Cruz (Braga), Rourke's reality is upended entirely.

Based in Rodriguez’s hometown of Austin, Texas, Hypnotic was given a SXSW premiere that received a successful reception. Like his features before, Rodriguez tells us this one was another low-budget whirlwind to film and produce, having to whittle away at their film schedule due to COVID shutdowns and on-location shoots. In an industry where budgets keep climbing, Rodriguez bucks the “bloated budgets,” opting instead to utilize every minute and every trick in his bag to keep the cost down and “marry it with a big idea.” During their interview, the director also reveals when we can expect to see the new Spy Kids movie, where the mid-credits scene originated, and what his hopes are for his James Cameron collaboration on Alita: Battle Angel. You can either watch or read what Rodriguez had to say below.

COLLIDER: So one of the things that really impressed me about the movie was how well-cut it was, how fast-moving it was, but it never felt like it was on fast-forward. Can you talk about finding the film in the editing room and finding that pace that you wanted to deliver the story?

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: It's quite early on when people would say, “What's this Hypnotic?” And I would just say, “It’s Hitchcock on steroids.” What I meant, really, was the pace. I thought, you know, [Alfred] Hitchcock films were older films, and I thought, I would love to bring a relentless pace to a thriller. I think that would be really fun. But then also, because of the COVID shutdowns, we had so little time to shoot this thing. It was shot like [El Mariachi] almost, like I couldn't make some of those shots any longer, we had to go really tight. So I had to be very economical, and as I was editing it together, I just thought, I just want to make this thing pull you along to where you don't really realize how fast this movie is.

And then my son wrote a score, it was not a thriller type score necessarily, like a Hitchcock thriller. He made it much more propulsive, it's very propulsive. So I think the mix of the music and the edits makes it feel like it's grabbing you like this [gestures], and pulling you through. I think that it was that combination of the sound and the picture edits. I didn't really have to find anything, I was just cutting what we shot because I had to shoot almost like one-to-one.

I don't know if you want to share, but how long did you have to shoot the movie?

RODRIGUEZ: Originally, it was gonna be 55 days, which is pretty luxurious. It's not bad for me the way I shoot. That's a lot of time, that's good. That's about what we do on a Sin City-type movie. But because we had to shut down three times, every time we got shut down we'd have to find money in the budget somewhere, and then the easiest way to cut budget is to cut days. So I went from 55 days, then the second time it cut down to 40 days, then the second time we shut down to 34 days, but it wasn't like a 12 to 14-hour day. They were French hour, 10-hour days, which, when you change locations several times a day like we had to, that's more like a 6 to 8-hour day, so that's like a 24-day schedule.

So I had to spin it in a good way. I thought, “Ben's gonna hate this,” and I thought, “Wait a minute, he's from the ‘90s too.” So I said, “Hey, Ben, it's gonna be like the roaring ‘90s, man. Remember when we started, we were shooting from the hip, indie style?” And he went, “Yeah, I didn't think anyone shot like that anymore. I stand around a lot on sets,” and said, “Let's do it that way.” So he was into it and we had such a blast. I think it brought an energy to it that reminded me of, “Oh, I got the Hitchcock experience.” He (Hitchcock) was so tired of the bloated budgets and the long schedules that he said, “Man, this TV thing is the way to go. I'm gonna take my TV crew, we're gonna shoot Psycho in black and white and shoot it fast.” So this was kind of like our Psycho [laughs].

We had to just shoot it very quick, but I think that's why it feels so fast is because we had to shoot it fast and we didn't have time to shoot extra shit that would have just slowed the edit down. So we kind of had to just go with the essentials and cut it, and get it down to the– it's like a 90-minute movie, right? It's like 94 minutes.

I'm a fan of your work, but I really enjoyed this movie and the world that you created. So I have to ask you, there's obviously people that have this power, did you consider when you were writing, “Well, if people have this power, then there's other people that must have another power?”

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I mean, I thought it could easily be a TV series. It could be like a series of movies. I thought the idea was really big, and one of my secrets, kind of without realizing it early on, was if you have a small or medium-size budget, don't come up with a small idea for it, or medium-size idea. Always come up with a really big idea because then you can have a slide rule to figure out what your budget is. If you don't get a big budget, it still works. So if the idea is really big and you ask questions like that by the end of it, that's a big idea. Or “kids are spies.” All you have to do is put sunglasses on them and have some sound effects, and you've already fulfilled the vision because the idea is just so big, you can make them for a small to medium budget.

So that's why I get more creative freedom when I can make of those smaller budgets, but I always try to marry it with a big idea. What I loved about the idea of this, why I stuck with it so long, is that it's what we do as storytellers and as filmmakers; we create a Hypnotic construct that hopefully is strong enough that the audience believes what they're seeing even though they know it's actors and lines, enough to cry or laugh or cheer or say, “Hey, I really like this,” and get their friends to go see it, too. And to pull back the layers like that within the movie is really fun to intercut. And because of the budget we started running out of, sometimes all we had was pipes and a sign and a golf cart, and it's like, that only makes the hypnotics feel even stronger that they're able to make that stuff work. So it made the movie better to have so much taken away from us. I had to rely on my own Mariachi tricks, and it was really fun. I think people will sense the fun that we had making it.

I don't want to do a spoiler, but you have an after-the-credit scene.

RODRIGUEZ: I hope people see it! I’m going to try and tweet out, “Go see the mid-credits sequence!”

I'm just curious, did you always know that was going to be there, and was it ever something else?

RODRIGUEZ: The ending was pretty much the same for the past seven years. I came up with that ending when I realized, you know, I'm all about family. I kind of want one more twist, and I didn't have that twist originally, you know, 20 years ago. But I just thought the other twist, the one you're talking about, that's an extra one I always forget about. That was always just part of the sequence, it didn't cut to credits. It just happened right away, and I just thought, let me move it so that it doesn't take away from the ending, but it's there. I still want it there.

I hope it's not too far down in the mid-credits because it's not a Marvel movie, I don't know if everyone's gonna stick around like they do at a Marvel movie, but hopefully people see it. People flipped out at South by Southwest when that ending came up, and some people will and some people won't, but the people who did, they really, really love that extra ending. So, I wasn't sure, I mean, sometimes you don't know with a thriller, and people are gonna always have different reactions, right? So it's like, which is the right one? I usually tend to go with the thing that I like most because then it's true to at least somebody, and I think other people will respond to that. And those who don't don’t, you know? You're never gonna win everybody over.

But, I wanted it in there somewhere because I thought it was cool, and it was such a $2 trick. I mean, it's such a trick… I did it with my iPhone to show the actors what we were doing, and they couldn't believe what they were seeing. They thought they were seeing things. I go, “This is like the Hitchcock method, no visual effects needed. It's just a sleight of hand trick.” That's what most of the movie is. My favorite sequences are just $2 edits, and the editing was so fun to do. I had such a blast editing. I edited, like, in three weeks, that's how much fun I was having. I was just like, boom, boom, boom! I wanted to see how each scene ended, and so many just fun tricks that you can do, and no dollars.

Like I said, I really enjoyed it. As a fan of your work, and I know the writers’ strike is going on right now, but do you think you're going to be filming anything this year?

RODRIGUEZ: Could be. I mean, I have something that we're hoping goes at the end of the year, but I needed to turn in another draft, so I don't know how long that's gonna take. Why is that? Do you want to come visit the set? You should come visit the set!

I want to see more movies from you.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I work pretty fast so as soon as I get to shooting, we'll have something out pretty quick. We have another Spy Kids coming out that's really great, coming out this year from Netflix.

That's my next question. I'm obviously looking forward to the new Spy Kids on Netflix. Do you have a release date? When are you going to release footage?

RODRIGUEZ: I don't know if I can say the release date, but it's coming, it's this year. We haven't announced it yet, but it's coming this year. I just finished scoring it, so you know, we're still waiting for visual effects. It won't be done until August, so it won't be any earlier than August.

So it's like November, December, something like that. I understand. As you know, I am a big fan of [Alita: Battle Angel]. I saw Jon [Landau] say something about Alita, and I have to ask you, is there movement on more Alita?

RODRIGUEZ: I mean, movement other than us talking about it? You know, I just wasn't sure it was ever gonna happen because even when the first movie came out, Disney had just bought Fox, so even our marketing people, everybody, were gone by the time that movie came out. And then there wasn't any Fox movies being made for years because Disney was still busy making their own Disney stuff. But now I've seen some Fox movies come out, so that gave me hope. And then when Jon mentioned that, and then [James Cameron] and I have been talking that we always wanted to do an Alita sequel. He outlined, very thoroughly, a second and a third film, so there's already material there. So yeah, we're hoping that that will happen. But nothing more definitive than that.

Look, I'm hoping whatever it takes, Disney+, theaters, whatever it takes, I would love for you guys to do more.

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, we'd love to. We really loved collaborating, and we definitely wanna do another one.

Hypnotic is in theaters May 12.