Fans have been eagerly waiting to see if Robert Rodriguez would make good on his promise that he would select Sin City 2 his followup to Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.

Rodriguez revealed earlier this year that financing for the graphic novel sequel had been secured and production could begin in the near future - once he and his collaborator (original Sin City author Frank Miller) had put the finishing touches on the screenplay.

Heat Vision has learned that Academy Award-winner William Monahan (The Departed) has been brought on to add the finishing touches to the most recent Sin City 2 draft penned by Miller. The tentative plan is for production on the film to commence once the shooting script has been locked.

Monahan has been increasingly busy of late, between his work on the screenplay for the Tom Cruise-starring Horizons (formerly, Oblivion) and being recently brought onboard to pen a remake of The Gambler for his Departed director, Martin Scorsese.

Between his Oscar-winning work on Scorsese's famous crime tale and dramatic thrillers like Body of Lies and Edge of Darkness, Monahan has earned himself a reputation for consistently churning out solid and intelligent genre pics. So news of his involvement with Sin City 2 should be all the more welcome, especially among those whose confidence in Miller's writing abilities have wavered in recent years (in part because of his Spirit comic book movie).

Miller's "A Dame to Kill For" has long been rumored as the potential basis for the second Sin City movie. Here is an official synopsis for that original comic book:

Enter Dwight McCarthy, a clean-living photographer who tries to avoid trouble because he knows what he's capable of. His tactics don't do him much good when a girl from his past (who he can't say no to) shows up and professes her love for him. When he finds out she's in way over her head, it looks as though trouble has found him. What's going to happen? You guessed it: people get hurt.

In other words, it's your basic Film Noir setup (like all the other Sin City stories) that throws Miller's customary breed of grisly violence into the mix. Using "A Dame to Kill For" would also allow for the likes of Dwight (Clive Owen), Marv (Mickey Rourke), and Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) to reprise their roles from the first film - though it's possible that characters like Gail (Rosario Dawson) and Miho (Devon Aoki) could end up either making a brief cameo or playing expanded roles in the movie version.

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Rodriguez and Miller will shoot Sin City 2 in the same digital black-and-white style as its predecessor, to better imitate the black ink drawing aesthetic of the latter's original comics. Scheduling shouldn't be an issue, since the entirety of the film will be shot against green screen, which - combined with some tricky editing in post-production - allows for actors and actresses to be on set at different times. Case in point: Mickey Rourke and Eljiah Wood never actually met until after Sin City had been shot, despite the fact that... well, the former actually murders the other in the movie.

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We will keep you posted on the status of Sin City 2 as more information is released.

Source: THR