There is an interesting and I hope not apocryphal story about how Robert Rodriguez convinced comic book auteur Frank Miller to allow Sin City to be committed to the silver screen. Every few years, Hollywood goes on a rampage optioning comic books. Most are never made into movies and, those that are, are rarely made into good movies the comic book creators can feel good about. Frank Miller had long been known to be a hold-out on his Sin City property. So, when Robert Rodriguez came calling with tales of fabulous new digital techniques, Frank Miller was skeptical. So the maverick director invited Miller to come watch Rodriguez put together a short film based on a self-contained Sin City short story. It was a no-strings-attached deal where Miller would own the final short and could decide, based on the short’s quality, whether or not he wanted to ink a deal with Rodriguez. When Miller showed up, he saw that Rodriguez had Josh Hartnett playing the role of Sin City’s assassin known only as The Man. Needless to say, brilliant casting was only a small piece of the puzzle and everyone who saw the short was blown away and Miller and Rodriguez made a deal. The short became the beginning of the movie and Hartnett’s brief bookend appearance in the movie is delightfully chilling and shows that he has much much more range as an actor than some might have guessed.
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