In news that suggests that the planned remake of Red Sonja may be dead in the water, Rose McGowan has joined the cast of Marcus Nispel’s Conan The Barbarian reboot. McGowan has long been attached to Red Sonja, based on the 1985 movie that was a semi-spin-off of Arnie’s Conan movies (and was a definite spin-off in the original novels, with both Conan and Sonja existing in the same universe).
The film has come close to shooting several times, but never actually made it into production, despite even getting as far as having posters and a Comic-con panel a couple of years ago.
However, McGowan taking a role in Conan would seem to suggest she’s given up on the idea of Red Sonja ever getting made, but still wants to get in on some Barbarian action. Shooting has just started on Conan, with Rose in Bulgaria to play an evil half-human, half-witch, who presumably causes Conan a bit of bother.
She’s joined Jason Momoa as the title character, Ron Perlman as Conan’s father, Stephen Lang as a villainous warlord, Rachel Nichols as love interest Tamara, Leo Howard as young Conan, Said Taghmaoui as the leader of a gang of thieves and Bob Sapp.
However while I said this suggests Red Sonja is dead, the new Conan movie took over a decade to put together, so maybe there’s still hope.