Mexican-American director Robert Rodriguez is gearing up for the broadcast premiere of his From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, based on his 1996 vampire film that has a cult-like following, on March 11 on his new cable network, El Rey.

The exciting new series, which features Wilmer Valderama, Eiza Gonzalez, Zane Holtz, Don Johnson and D.J. Cotrona, among others, will mark the first piece of original programming from the network that Rodriguez created to appeal to young Latino Americans.

"The show ('From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series') is awesome. It takes Quentin's original characters and re-imagines their storylines and trajectory, introduces new characters and will surprise the audience with its twists and turns. I'm really proud of it, it's edgy and cool freaking scary. The whole season takes place from dusk til dawn. It's going to be one hell of a night," Rodriguez said on Reddit's AMA.

Based on the 1996 movie, From Dusk Till Dawn starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Salma Hayek, Danny Trejo and Juliette Lewis, the plot is about "two criminals and their hostages who unknowingly seek temporary refuge in an establishment populated by vampires, with chaotic results."

What was it like for Rodriguez to tackle a TV series versus a film, and what are the pros and cons?

"The film, you only have a limited time to tell a story, and any character that Quentin creates, they can live and breathe for so much more than that," Rodriguez told Entertainment Weekly Radio. "And so I decided to take the idea of the movie, retell it in a way, add new characters and have different things happen to characters you know and love, and really set up the story to sustain itself for several seasons. We get a lot more into the mythology of the temple where they go, and build up that mythology. You see some sign posts to what the movie had offered story-wise, but it goes in completely different directions."

Born and raised in San Antonio, Rodriguez was fascinated by cartooning and filmmaking since he was a child and he dedicated most of his time to developing his skills and passion.

When referring to his early sci-fi horror films Rodriguez says on his Reddit AMA, "I shot those on my home video camera and would show the films to the teachers and students in the assembly hall. I was the only kid in the school with a video camera making movies, so I convinced the teachers to let me make films instead of writing term papers, and they'd give me grades as long as I included the class subject somehow in the project in a creative way. Even if it was an action film!

"One year I had a guy running around in a hoodie as a killer for a Halloween spoof and then separately filmed one of the teachers pulling the hood off. He didn't realize I was going to edit it to look like the teacher was the killer until the screening. Good times."

Rodriguez made his first real movie, El mariachi, in 1992, thus catapulting his career as "the legend of independent, ultra-low budget filmmaking."

He has worn many hats since then -- he's written, directed, edited, and/or produced over ten movies besides From Dusk Til Dawn, including: Desperado (1995), The Faculty (1998) and Spy Kids (2001).

So how did Rodriguez manage to nab the opportunity to start-up a brand new network?

According to The Austin Business Journal, Rodriguez's friend and media executive John Fogelman, who has a 50 percent stake in the family oriented cable channel The Hub Network, approached him in late 2010 with the news that Comcast Corp. was offering deals to create targeted cable channels.

Initially, Rodriguez shied away from working in television for most of his career due to its "unpredictable nature, but the chance to create his own channel got his creative juices pumping."

"When I heard about it I had a flash of a vision of this Hispanic English-language network that's for the people who like my movies," he told The Austin Business Journal. "To do it you need to have really cool programming and it's a way to be your own content distributor. That gives you lots more freedom to have a direct pipeline to your audience without any interference. (Creating a network) is so much cooler than just working in TV. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

With a plan in place for a network with the help of his creative team, Rodriguez gained attention from the Spanish-language network Univision, who had an interest in breaking into the English-speaking market and offered help with getting distribution on major service providers such as Time Warner Cable. El Rey is carried in Austin on Time Warner.

Besides his latest venture in TV, Rodriguez has inspired other Latino filmmakers through his success story and encouraged other filmmakers to take creative chances and follow your dreams.

A Mexican fan reached out to Rodriguez for advice, saying:

"Hey Robert, welcome to Reddit! I've been feeling like a real Mexican't lately. Do you have any words of advice or inspiration that will help me get back to Mexican status? Not even kidding about this."

"Hate to say this but it is also helpful advice. The biggest obstacle you will ever face, your biggest roadblock, your greatest enemy in accomplishing your goals, your biggest naysayer, is yourself. Nobody can keep you from getting where you want to get or need to get like yourself.

"The negative voices we face come more fiercely and furiously from within ourselves. It seems like its outward forces a lot of times, but on close honest scrutiny it comes from within. I've been there, a LOT. But believe me, it can be overcome. Once you truly believe you can do anything (and you need to start building piles of evidence through both big and small endeavors) you will almost magically be able to do anything and everything."

Check out the trailer for From Dusk Till Dawn on the El Rey Network and follow the @Elreynetwork to find out more exciting news on the series.