It's been confirmed today that Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp, 2018's Tomb Raider, Ready Player One) will play the titular part in the newest adaptation effort of Red Sonja. A major step in a property that has been going from creative force to creative force for decades in an attempt to bring the character to the big screen.
Initially created in the 1970's by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comics, the character eventually was popular enough to get her own series. Though largely the character was noted for was her fighting abilities, she was visually an example of the male gaze as she was often drawn in a chain-mail bikini. The only time the character ever made it to live-action was a 1985 film that starred Brigitte Nielsen in the titular role (with Arnold Schwarzenegger in a supporting role as his then-popular take on Conan). Since then, the character has gone through several attempts at another film, the most prominent being in 2008 when Rose McGowan was set to play her for producer Robert Rodriguez and director Douglas Aarniokoski. The last anyone heard was back in 2018 when Bryan Singer was set to direct for Millenium Films, but then was dropped by the studio's chief Avi Lerner due to public pressure after the Atlantic published an exposé alleging Singer had sexually assaulted underage boys. The last anyone heard, Joey Soloway had become Singer's replacement as well as having co-written the screenplay withTasha Huo.
Soloway still remains attached to the property and released a statement in response to John-Kamen's casting:
“Hannah is a very talented actress who we’ve been following for years and she is Red Sonja. Her range, sensibilities and strength are all qualities we have been looking for and we couldn’t be more excited to embark on this journey together.”
The film has a stacked set of producers, all who have invested time in the property for years. This includes Mark Canton, Courtney Solomon, Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman for Campbell Grobman Films, and Andrea Sperling for Topple. Yariv Lerner, Jeffrey Greenstein, Jonathan Yunger, Les Weldon, Joe Gatta, and Tanner Mobley are serving as producers for Millennium Media. In addition, Lerner himself will executive producer alongside Boaz Davidson and Trevor Short are executive producing. Luke Lieberman is executive producing for Red Sonja LLC while Nick Barrucci is executive producing for Dynamite Entertainment and Dorothy Canton. Hope the film gets made now because any more producers and no one is going to make a profit from this! Stay tuned!
Looks just like the comic. LMAO