Avi Lerner, one of the most influential and prolific producers working in Hollywood, saw Wonder Woman at a movie theater in the summer of 2017 and immediately knew he needed to develop his own female-led superhero movie. So his company, Millennium, reached out to Luke Lieberman with the intent of putting Red Sonja on the developmental fast track. Lieberman owns the rights to everything relating to the Red Sonja name and property and he currently works with Dynamite Entertainment to publish comic books about her.
With Millennium and Lerner financing and producing the project and the rights secured, the Red Sonja project was a go. The next step in pre-development would be putting together a script. They landed on writer / producer Ashley Edward Miller. Miller has the first Thor movie and X-Men: First Class on his list of writing credits. He also wrote Agent Cody Banks and a few episodes of televisions shows Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In addition to the Red Sonja script, he is also currently working on a reboot of Big Trouble in Little China that will see Dwayne Johnson take on the role of Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton.
Casting has not been announced but reports have indicated the studio is – or has at one point – looked at both Amber Heard and Rose McGowan for the title role.
Miller commented on the news;
“It’s an exciting opportunity to faithfully adapt the amazing Hyborean world Robert E. Howard created, and inject it with Sonja’s intelligence, ferocity, and fearless humanity,” and “I want people to love Sonja the way I love her, and walk out of the theater understanding why she’s so popular and enduring. Sonja is an icon.”
This will be the second Red Sonja movie to be released. The first, directed by Richard Fleischer, was released in 1985 and starred Brigitte Nielson as Red Sonja and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Kalidor.
Red Sonja herself was created in 1973 by both Barry Windsor-Smith and Roy Thomas for Marvel Comics. They based their new character off of Red Sonya, the female that starred in now famous works of author and novelist Robert E Howard. In comic book form, Red Sonja first appeared in the 23rd issue of Conan the Barbarian in 1973 before getting her own 15-issue title in 1977. She has since had multiple comic book volumes, one-shots, appearances and crossovers.
