Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller appear to be serious about getting their Sin City sequel up and running after years of discussions – and now they’ve added an Oscar-winning screenwriter to their roster of creative talent.

THR reports that scribe William Monahan – who won an Oscar for adapting the screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s The Departed – has signed on to the project in order to work on Frank Miller’s original script. This is great news for fans, who’ve been waiting since 2005 for a sequel to the hit comic film. The original Sin City earned over $100 million worldwide – making it strange that it’s taken so long to get a sequel off the ground.
 
Rodriguez has always talked about Sin City 2 in the intervening years, but there never seemed to be any real progress toward getting it made. That changed in July, when the filmmaker told Comic-Con attendees that financing was in place and that shooting would commence as soon as a script was locked in. With Monahan on the job, the script could be finished before the end of the year.
 
There’s been no official word on which actors will reprise their roles from the first film, but the speculation is that a sequel will focus on the characters played by Mickey Rourke and Jessica Alba. Rodriguez has stated that he expects the actors playing characters who survived the first film will return for the sequel – and that accommodating their schedules shouldn’t be an issue since most of the film will be shot green screen and without actual sets.
 
Monahan, meanwhile, continues to be a hot commodity. Aside from working on Tom Cruise’s sci-fi flick Oblivion, the writer is also set to reunite with Scorsese for a remake of the 1974 film The Gambler.