Editing Once Upon a Time in Mexico (section)

==Production==
Made on a US$29 million budget,<ref name="box" /> the film was shot in May 2001 before ''[[Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams]]'' (2002) and ''[[Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over]]'' (2003) in order to avoid a potential [[Screen Actors Guild]] strike. Shooting took place over seven weeks in [[Querétaro]], [[San Miguel de Allende]] and [[Guanajuato]], Mexico. It was the first big-budget film to be shot in high-definition digital video.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez|last=Aldama|first=Frederick Luis|publisher=[[University of Texas Press]]|year=2014|isbn=9780292761230|page=47|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1dSBBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA47}}</ref> [[Robert Rodriguez]] chose to shoot on digital after [[George Lucas]], who was shooting ''[[Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones]]'' (2002), showed him early footage shot digitally. Impressed, Rodriguez chose to shoot digitally, but he knew he did not have enough time to shoot ''Spy Kids 2''. Instead, he pitched a sequel to ''[[Desperado (film)|Desperado]]'' (1995) to [[Miramax Films]] and wrote a script in six days. The initial draft was 65 pages long, which he padded with a subplot borrowed from an unproduced short film. When Miramax Films expressed hesitation over the added subplot, he readily removed it. His primary influence was [[Sergio Leone]]'s ''[[Dollars Trilogy]]'', specifically ''[[The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly]]'' (1966). Rodriguez said shooting digitally saved time and money, simplified the filming process, and rendered [[35 mm movie film|35&nbsp;mm film]] obsolete for him.<ref>{{cite book|title=Robert Rodriguez: Interviews|last1=McKernan|first1=Brian|last2=Zahn|first2=Bob|editor-last=Ingle|editor-first=Zachary|publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]]|year=2012|isbn=9781617032721|pages=75–82}}</ref>