William Monahahn doing scriptwork on Sin City 2

After staying up way too late and enduring the atrocity that was the VMAs, this is the kind of cheery news I needed. THR is reporting that William Monahan, Oscar winning screenwriter of The Departed, is going to be taking a pass at the script for the long gestating sequel to Sin City. Joy.

Last month at Comic-Con, Robert Rodriguez told us that Sin City 2 was definitely next on his list, after about six years of teasing and taunting us. The possibility was that production could begin this year, but it depended on the completion of the script written by Sin City creator, Frank Miller. As with the previous film, there'll be multiple storyarcs, with one overlapping tale. The central story is based on what I think is the best of all of Miller's stories, A Dame To Kill For. He's also written up a brand new tale, The Long, Bad Night.

So what Monahan will be doing is taking a second pass at Miller's script, and I can't think of anybody more qualified to do so. I had started to think that maybe Rodriguez wasn't really serious about making the film, but pulling out all the stops by bringing in Monahan proves he's jumping in with both feet. Over the weekend it was reported that Monahan would be reteaming with Martin Scorsese on a remake of The Gambler.

This is really the first legit move we've heard about Sin City 2 since we learned Miller was working on a script. At this rate, it won't be long before casting begins, and it has to be assumed most of the cast, including Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba,and Rosario Dawson, would come back for seconds.