At Last, 'Sin City' Sequel Gets A Release Date

Eight years later, writer/director Robert Rodriguez, creator Frank Miller and others will come home to "Sin City."

After years spent amid development and delays, Dimension Films has slated "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" to hit theaters Oct. 4, 2013, according to Deadline. It's the follow-up fans have awaited to 2005's "Sin City," the ensemble-cast, remarkably faithful film adaptation of selected tales from writer/artist Frank Miller's black-and-white noir graphic novels of the same name.

Once more, Miller and Rodriguez will co-direct, from a script written by the pair with William Monahan. When Rodriguez and Miller collaborated on "Sin City," Rodriguez opted to forsake his Directors Guild of America membership when the DGA objected to his granting Miller a rare "co-director" credit. It panned out well enough: when screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, the film was awarded Technical Grand Prize.

Confirmed as returning with Rodriguez and Miller are Mickey Rourke and Jessica Alba, as violent but noble brute Marv and stripper with a heart of gold Nancy respectively. The title confirms that the sequel will be at least largely based on Miller's "A Dame To Kill For" book, which takes place before (SPOILER!) Marv's death in "Sin City." That particular tale explains how Dwight McCarthy came to look like Clive Owen via a reluctant entanglement with his seductive, manipulative ex, Ava.

It also fleshes out his past trysts with Old Town hooker ring-leader Gail (in the first film, Rosario Dawson) and how he becomes acquainted with Shellie (Brittany Murphy.)

Shellie, obviously, might present the problem. Murphy passed away in December 2009, so that may leave Rodriguez to a recasting.

Then again, it's not as though that's outside his wheelhouse. After all, this is El Mariachi in "El Mariachi"....

And, of course, El Mariachi in "Desperado" and "Once Upon A Time In Mexico"....

Word has also persisted through the years the sequel has spent in development that what we'll soon know as "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" will also boast two brand-new stories written by Miller for the film.

Deadline claims that production will begin this summer at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin, TX.