Robert Rodriguez - Elizabeth Avellan - Troublemaker Studios - The Marriage Is Over, but the Show Goes On

“RICHARD LINKLATER may have put this capital city on the film industry’s radar with “Slacker” in 1991. But for almost as long as Austin has been known as the Texas Hollywood, its most prominent and prolific player has been Troublemaker Studios, a filmmaking funhouse created by the director Robert Rodriguez and the producer Elizabeth Avellan.

For more than 15 years the partners ”” in both business and marriage ”” churned out entertainments like “Sin City,” the “Spy Kids” trilogy and “Desperado.” And they gladdened the hearts of studio executives by delivering their popular movies under budget, keeping postproduction in-house at Troublemaker’s downtown location and in their sound and editing studios on the 100-acre Avellan/Rodriguez compound outside Austin, next door to the castlelike home (complete with balconies and hidden staircases) where they raise their five children.

But last year, during the filming of the “Grindhouse” double bill that paired Mr. Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” with Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof,” came the rumors, and then the official announcement that Mr. Rodriguez and the pregnant Ms. Avellan had decided to end their marriage. The news that the two had separated and, months later, Mr. Rodriguez’s public appearances with Rose McGowan, the leading lady of “Planet Terror,” came as a shock to the close-knit Austin filmmaking community.”

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