Off the back of roles on shows such as ‘Euphoria’ and ‘The White Lotus’, Sydney Sweeney is keeping her big screen career bubbling in a big way. And she’s become a firm favorite at Sony, with whom she is developing several projects.
The latest, per Deadline, is a remake of ‘Barbarella’.
Roger Vadim’s 1968 campy cult classic follows an astronaut from the 41st century (Jane Fonda) who sets out to find and stop the evil scientist Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea), whose Positronic Ray threatens to bring evil back into the galaxy. It was sexy, it was over the top and while it didn’t exactly set the box office alight, it has outlived the critical reaction and remains one of Fonda’s most iconic roles.
The film was based on the controversial comic books character created by Jean-Claude Forest for serialization in the French ‘V Magazine’ in spring 1962. In 1964, Éric Losfeld published the strips as a stand-alone book titled ‘Barbarella’. The book caused a scandal and became known as the first “adult” comic book, with the title character frequently depicted having sex.
Several different attempts at a remake have floated around in the last couple of decades.
Drew Barrymore was briefly attached to a new take on the tale shortly before the arrival of 2000’s ‘Charlie’s Angels’. That one would have seen her playing a woman who discovers a secret about her planet and leading a revolution.
Scrub forward to 2007 and you have news that Robert Rodriguez had been developing his own version for a few years, planned to star then-girlfriend Rose McGowan. But though he got an offer from a German company to stump up the budget, he didn’t take because it meant shooting overseas, away from his family. And an attempt to set it up with Universal stalled for other financial reasons.
“Universal had initially signed on for $60 million,” Rodriguez told The New York Observer, “but then when we were done with the script it wound up at closer to $82 million, and they had just financed a Will Ferrell movie (‘Land of the Lost’) that was a $130 million and they even cut that down to $100 million.”
Around the same time, veteran James Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were hired by Gaumont International Television to script a TV adaptation, one that eventually ended up in the hands of ‘Drive’ director Nicolas Winding Refn. Yet even that ultimately went nowhere, drifting off into the endless wastes of the development galaxy.
According to Deadline, Sweeney will produce the new movie for Sony, which will now look to lock in a writer and director to move it forward.
It’s just the latest move for the actor, who already has a role in ‘Madame Web’, due in theaters on February 16, 2024.
She’s also filmed a role in crime drama ‘National Anthem’, is developing novel adaptation ‘The Registration’ and has mystery TV series ‘The Players Table’ in the works.
Even more recently, she’s now teaming up with Universal to adapt Marcus Kliewer’s short story ‘The Caretaker’, which tells the story of a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist and quickly discovers her responsibilities have stakes far greater (and more dangerous) than she could have ever imagined.
That one will be produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes company.
