The Barbarella Remake Moves Forward without Rodriguez

For a campy and mostly forgettable sci-fi movie (at least if you’re into sci-fi, not so much if you’re into watching a young Jane Fonda slink around the screen in various stages of half-dress), a lot of people sure seems interested in resurrecting space mercenary Barbarella. The latest news has producer Dino De Laurentiis finally getting this thing ready to shoot.

THR reports that Dino De Laurentiis has hired a screenwriter to adapt the 1960s movie starring Fonda as the titular Barbarella for Robert Luketic to direct. Joe Gazzam will pen the screenplay, replacing previous writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who had completed a script that Robert Rodriguez was originally attached to direct with his fiancee Rose McGowan starring as the title character. Rodriguez has since bailed on the project.

The original “Barbarella” was directed by Roger Vadim, and based on the comic books by Jean-Claude Forest. Set in “the far future”, the film starred Fonda as a highly sexual woman who is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand, played by Milo O’Shea. Along the way she encounters various unusual people and does a lot of seducing. Hey, it’s Jane Fonda in her prime. I’m sure it sounded like a good idea back then.