Last year, along with the buzz of blood and chaos, Grindhouse brought rumors of marital difficulties. Officially, Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellan have stated that they were split well before the making of the movie, and that all was amicable. Rumors, however, have also been circulating about Rose McGowan's involvement, which quickly went from a "professional relationship," to a hand-holding appearance at Cannes. Yet another case of the long-term partner getting dumped for the younger actress -- I guess not all men can be Maxwell Caulfield. Anyhow, Avellan recently talked with the New York Times about where things lay post-separation, both for her production company with her ex, Troublemaker Studios, and her future solo work.

The company will continue to run as-is, in accordance with earlier claims, but it looks like both are going to branch out to separate projects. For the first time, she's working with a director other than Rodriguez and is bringing Jonathan Jakubowicz's Queen of the South to the screen for Warner Independent Pictures. She says: "I didn't want Robert to feel like I wasn't giving 150 percent, like any producer would do. So I'd not talk about this or that. Now I feel free to mention some of the things that I'm doing."

It's both a freeing and eerie statement -- one that speaks well for her future, but sadly of her past. Hopefully this is the beginning of some time in the spotlight for Avellan. As the piece notes, The Hollywood Reporter had listed a Latino Power 50 this year, but while Rodriguez was listed third, she wasn't included, nor mentioned. She's functioned under the radar for many years now, so hopefully the time has come to see her shine.

Okay, so back in May when I told you Rodriguez was finally ready to make action happen on the Madman property he's courted the rights to for so many years, what I really meant by "ready to make action happen" was "ready to make action happen in another seven months or so." Yes, although it was beginning to look like this year was just going to be another in the long line of "Hey, Rodriguez is going to make Madman!" rumor years which ends in defeat (we've had a number of those years since the latter end of the last decade), it turns out we've finally got some actual news coming. Rodriguez has landed a deal with the good folks at Dimension Films, and will follow largely the same path he took in creating Sin City. That is to say, he's enlisted the comic book creator (Mike Allred) to co-write the script with him and thus plans to stay very true to the original source material.

The entire project will be put together at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios. Probably due to his already hefty plate of projects, Rodriguez will not actually be directing this one, instead tapping familiar collaborator George Huang to helm. Said Rodriguez of the team he's assembled: "George has always had a really great grasp of the books, and Michael is just about the coolest guy you'll ever meet, his Madman comics are nothing short of visionary." Yours truly is very excited about this combination.