Robert Rodriguez is on fire (and ice)…

The 46-year-old Mexican American filmmaker is set to direct Sony Pictures’ live-action version of the 1983 animated film Fire and Ice.

The film is being heralded as Rodriguez’s homage to his friend, the late legendary animator Frank Frazetta, on whose works Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi based that original film.

The deal reunites Rodriguez with Sony Pictures; Columbia Pictures acquired the Sundance Film Festival breakout El Mariachi, Rodriguez’s memorable debut.

The goal is for Fire And Ice to lead to a fantasy adventure franchise, informed by the dreamlike worlds Frazetta poured into his paintings.

In the original film, a small village is destroyed by a surging glacier domain for the evil Ice Lord, Nekron. Sole survivor is a young warrior who vows vengeance, and when Nekron’s subhuman, apelike creatures kidnap a king’s daughter, the warrior becomes determined to track down and free her.

“I’m a lifelong Frazetta fan who was inspired by his work, like so many people,” Rodriguez said. “It was my dream to work with him, and the first thing I did when I got to Hollywood was call him. I got him to do a From Dusk Till Dawn poster for me, and I got to work with him and know him over the years. When I’d visit him at his museum and see his artwork, I tried to figure what would the ultimate Frazetta movie be. I remembered the movie he did, Fire And Ice, back when I was a kid. I thought, ‘I wish they could have made it look more like the paintings, but I guess they’d have had to paint each frame.’ Now, you could do that. You could make it look like you were in his imagination. He didn’t use models, he didn’t use swipes. He painted purely from his imagination, and the characters and the colors made you feel like you were in a dream, and a fully realized and completely imagined world. It was so visual and arresting.”