Ever since Robert Rodriguez's independently financed film Machete, an expansion of the fake trailer that he created for Quentin Tarantino and his experimental film Grindhouse, began production there had been a lot of speculation on what studio would be picking up the distribution rights? But now the wait is over as Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that 20th Century Fox has won the rights to distribute the new film, beating out five other competing studios in the process. The six studios were shown roughly 15 to 30 minutes of footage with the asking price set at $9 million including a healthy profit sharing from the film's theatrical and back-end grosses, according to the article.

In the film, Danny Trejo returns as the knife-wielding title character and is joined by an unusual cast of actors that includes Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Segal, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Rose McGowan and Tom Savini. The film was written and produced by Rodriguez with financing from Rick Schwartz's Overnight Productions. Rodriguez directed the film with co-director Ethan Maniquis.

As many know, Rodriguez was already working with Fox on a re-boot of the Predator series entitled Predators that the director co-wrote and is producing for the studio, which will be released this summer. While the Weinstein Company did have first look rights for Machete based on their long-term relationship with Rodriguez, it does make sense that the director would take the offer from Fox as they were also offering a production deal for his company Troublemaker Studios. So it is probably safe to assume that Rodriguez will be making Fox his new home for the foreseeable future.

Machete was released September 3rd, 2010 and stars Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson. The film is directed by Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez.