Why The Original Spy Kids Actors Didn’t Return For Netflix Reboot Movie Explained By Robert Rodriguez

The Spy Kids: Armageddon creator had a good reason to keep the original Spy Kids actors out of the reboot. Featuring two new children of powerful spies, the newest movie is a direct reboot of the original 2001 film. The first movie earned $150 million against a $35 million budget, proving to be a massive success. The reboot premiered on Netflix on Friday and is already receiving mixed reviews. One overwhelming critique has been its inability to include the first movie’s stars. The first child spies, Carmen and Juni Cortez, both failed to appear in Armageddon.

Spy Kids creator Robert Rodriguez spoke to Yahoo about the reboot and his decision to leave the siblings out of the movie. In an effort to keep his reboot feeling fresh from the beginning to the end of Armageddon, he chose to avoid reintroducing characters from the original movies. In the future, he would still love to bring back Carmen and Juni. Check out his quote below:

I wanted to re-establish a new family. Because it’d been so long [since 2011’s All the Time in the World], it was important to just start the franchise fresh and then go from there. I would love to bring back [characters], I would love to connect the worlds. That would be so fun. It could still be in the same world, so if we get to make more films, there easily could be legacy characters that come back.

The Future Of Spy Kids

For a time, it seemed that Spy Kids was going to be permanently concluded. The latest iteration before Armageddon was Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, which premiered in 2011 and proved to be a massive disappointment. It earned $85 million on a $27 million budget, which was a franchise-worst at the box office. Despite its predecessor’s relative failure, the reboot could still save the franchise.

Even with mixed reviews leaving the reboot with a 57 percent Tomatometer score, audiences remain fairly high on Armageddon. The movie has already achieved a 71 percent audience score at the time of writing. That could lead to the future that Rodriguez is imagining — a return of the original Spy Kids. It will, however, take time to see Carmen and Juni in action again.

Any potential Spy Kids: Armageddon 2 will have to wait months to film, as lead actors Connor Esterson and Everly Carganilla will be in school and unable to shoot any feature movies. Daryl Sabara and Alexa PenaVega, the original kid spies, will not have quite the same negotiating and filming restrictions. As soon as the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike comes to an end, they will be able to contact Rodriguez about returning to the franchise. Carmen and Juni could very well be coming to Spy Kids: Armageddon, if Netflix approves.

Source: Yahoo