Although superhero movies have become a Hollywood staple since the beginning of the century, few have featured women as the lead heroines. However, the success of Wonder Woman earlier this year looks like this will soon change, as the DCEU installment was a critical and commercial powerhouse. The Marvel Cinematic has already had 2019's Captain Marvel in development for several years, and now we can look forward to Red Sonja returning to the silver screen more than three decades after her first movie.
Looking to set up its own superhero franchise, Millennium Media has announced that it will finance and produce a new Red Sonja movie. Millennium's Avi Lerner (who specifically named Wonder Woman as one of the reasons this new Red Sonja story is moving forward) and Joe Gatta will produce the reboot alongside Mark Canton and Courtney Solomon. According to Deadline, the project is being fast-tracked, and the next step is to hire a writer. Rather than be a direct remake of the 1985 Red Sonja movie, the reboot will contain "fresh story ideas and characters."
Red Sonja was introduced in 1973's Conan the Barbarian #23, which was the era when Marvel Comics was publishing comic books based off Robert E. Howard's fantasy mythology. In the character's original origin story, a traveling band of mercenaries killed her family and burned down her home. Red Sonja tried to defend herself, but she was unable to lift her brother's sword, and she was subsequently raped by the band's leader. After these monsters left, Red Sonja was visited by the goddess Scathach, who imbued her with amazing strength and fighting skills so she could carry out revenge. In recent years, Dynamite Entertainment has been publishing Red Sonja comics stories, and in the new continuity, the titular character is a relative of the original Red Sonja who went through her own traumatic ordeal and came out of it a warrior, though that was due to training rather than being visited by a goddess.
The original Red Sonja movie starred Brigitte Nielsen as the main heroine and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Lord Kalimdor, although Schwarzenegger was originally supposed to reprise Conan the Barbarian. Back in 2010, Rose McGowan was supposed to star in a new Red Sonja movie, but that project never got off the ground, and since then has been stuck in development hell. In other media, the animated movie Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues was in August 2016, and it was also reported last year that an "R-rated" Red Sonja TV series was in development under X-Men director Bryan Singer. Because of the movie reboot, it's unclear if the TV project will move forward.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more news on how the Red Sonja movie is coming along. As for what's hitting theaters sooner, take a look at our 2017 premiere guide and 2018 premiere guide.
