Today in unexpected remakes, we return to Barbarella, the 1968 Roger Vadim movie in which Jane Fonda goes to space in a ship fully lined with shag carpet and defeats a machine that is intended to kill her with pleasure. Barbarella—which is based on a French comic book—is a lot. And now, Deadline reports, Barbarella will return in a new film starring Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, The Handmaid’s Tale).
Very little is known about the remake, which is in development at Sony Pictures. No writer or director is attached. Sydney, Deadline says, is expected to executive produce.
It’ll be interesting, at least, to see how a remake approaches the concept behind Barbarella, which involves the heroine having sex with a lot of other characters—but in a sort of sexual awakening, as on our future Earth, no one actually has sex anymore (instead they take… sex pills? Listen, I didn’t write the script, please bear with me). How successfully the idea of a non-moralistic sexual awakening for an often naked woman went in the original film is still debated; how it will work in a 2020s film is probably an entirely different matter.
One can only assume, though, that the effects and costumes will be upgraded for our modern sensibilities. But will there still be a character named Dildano?
No release date or additional casting has been announced.
