Robert Rodriguez’s breakout film, 1992’s El Mariachi, famously cost him $7,000 and some change to shoot. It still holds the Guinness World Record for lowest-budget film to gross $1 million at ...

‘El Mariachi’ Actor Peter Marquardt Dies at 50. He got the part of the drug lord Moco in the 1992 film due to a chance meeting with writer-director Robert Rodriguez when they were bunkmates at ...

El Mariachi is such a terrible example for these kinds of articles. ... but you can’t claim his $7,000 movie made a million bucks when HIS version of the movie never played at the box office.

The new film was a project that sprung from memories of working on El Mariachi, the $7,000 indie he infamously paid for by selling his body to medical experimentation.

Rodriguez was participating in the study to raise money for 1992’s El Mariachi, his first film, famously shot for a little more than $7,000. Marquardt played Mauricio, ...