by Conan Simmons – August 7, 2021 – 9:55 pm
There’s a new version of a classic pulp heroine making her way to the big screen.
‘Red Sonja’ is set to star Hannah John-Kamen as the red-headed sword wielder in an upcoming film to be directed by Joey Soloway from a script by Soloway and Tasha Huo. The film is being produced by Avi Lerner, Joe Gatta, Mark Canton, Courtney Solomon and George Furla.
Hannah John-Kamen recently played the villain Ghost in the 2018 Marvel film ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’. She’s not the only actress from the Marvel Cinematic Universe making the leap into the Hyborian Age.
Jaimie Alexander, best known as Sif in ‘Thor’ and its sequels, has recently revealed that she may be appearing in the film in an as yet unspecified role. Perhaps the villainess?
Also heavily rumored to be appearing in the film is satirical comedian Sacha Baron Cohen who may be taking on a character named Kulan Gath.
Red Sonja is a character originally created by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, for the 1934 short story “Shadow of the Vulture” published in The Magic Carpet Magazine. That story introduced the character as Sonya in an adventure taking place in the 16th century.
In 1973, Marvel Comics retconned the character into the Red Sonja we all know today. Appearing in Conan the Barbarian #23 written by Roy Thomas with art by Barry Windsor-Smith the character was established in the fictional Hyborian age of the famous Cimmerian. A Red Sonja solo series began running in 1975.
The first screen adaptation of the character came in 1985. Brigitte Nielsen starred as ‘Red Sonja’ alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger who appeared not as Conan but a different character. The film was a box office bomb directed by Richard Fleischer though it did feature a music score by Ennio Morricone.
Angelica Bridges played the character on the small screen for an episode of ‘Conan the Adventurer’, a one season series that ran from 1997-1998.
In 2008, Robert Rodriguez was in active development on bringing the character back to the screen with Rose McGowan as the lead. This project was scrapped by 2010 though McGowan would play a different character in 2011’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’ starring Jason Momoa.
Around that same time producer Avi Lerner had taken over the ‘Red Sonja’ project and was publicly claiming Amber Heard would likely take the lead. The project remained in development hell for years until 2018 when director Bryan Singer was confirmed to take the helm. That quickly came to an end as Singer was dropped from the project in early 2019 after numerous allegations from his ongoing sex scandals made him a Hollywood pariah.
The project seemed to go right back into development hell until the announcement was made in the summer of 2019 that Joey Soloway would write and direct.
‘Red Sonja’ is yet to confirm the casting details and filming locations. It is looking that the film will begin production in the coming months for a possible release in late 2022 or early 2023. It will join a rising tide of sword and sandal entries coming from Hollywood as ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ is currently filming with star Chris Pine and Amazon announcing their series adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ will begin airing in September 2022.