Universal Drops Out of BARBARELLA Remake

HMMMM Let's see here.
Rose McGowan can't pull off a role Jane Fonda made popular? C'MON!! It was Jane Fonda and as for nepotism, Hmmmmmm Jane Fonda (adequate actress, but nothing more) who was a famous actress due to her famous Hollywood family. Considering the similarities I'd say Rose is perfect for the role. AND Robert Rodriguez has shown me that he is capable of better decision making than ANY Hollywood executive.

Robert Rodriguez is nothing more than a grandiose cameraman, who some mistaken for a director. The guy has never made a good film, and his movies take in, on average...about 60 million, or less, at the box office, per release. You add in the cost of film prints, distribution, advertising and promotions...and well...that's plain laughable!!! Any money Rodriguez ever manages to bring in, is on DVD...after even more big promotions, more advertising, manufacturing and distribution.
Spending 85 to a 100 million dollars to back him on anything is a joke!!! He's not even worth a budget of 45 million per film!!! Crunch the numbers yourselves, you'll see that I'm right.

As far as the casting choices here, from Rose McGowen to Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and Jessica Alba, the latter 3 women...Universal's picks according to leaked information--they are all wrong for the role also. Barbarella is a character with the body of a bomb shell sex kitten who is a virginal sexual dupe for the sexually perverse villains that she faces. She is not the seducer, she is the seducee. We, the audience, know this, but she doesn't. So when we witness villains like Duran Duran...and her seamy allies seduce her, time and time again, we are cringing, and yet enjoying the subversive sexual Euro-Erotic politics. We want to warn Barbarella...but we can't, as she finds herself being preyed upon and lured into sexually compromising positions, and into bed...repeatedly...and doesn't seem to learn from her last encounter to the next, that she is being used. Yes, she is a brilliant fighter, an intelligent war strategist, a fabulous pilot, and is great with hand to hand combat, as well, she is an elite weapons expert...but when it comes to issues of the bedroom, she is an innocent--and Rose McGowan, Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry and Jessica Alba are no innocents.

That's the fun of the story...the fact that she, Barbarella, is an unwitting sexual duped...and naive--one who is like an innocent school girl...that happens to be scantily clad...and dressed like a whore, but whom assumes that people like her, just for who she is...with no other motives other than the words that they speak, which she...more often than not, falsely assumes to be truthful. She is like a cute girl on MySpace, being invited to a picnic by every oversexed pervert that can managed to get a MySpace account--who is unaware that she is only instigating negative, dangerous and unwanted attention by men, via her tempting style of dress, or lack there of, her unintentional sexual movements, eager yet bountiful breast cleavage and her innocent flirtations. She is Eve in Eden who is still not ashamed to be openly nude...because she doesn't know what nudity is...nor does she know what sexuality is, or the power of either.

With that in mind, you need an actress in the role who seems virginal. A girl who could be dangerous if she knew what her body was made for, but is naively unaware of her own shapely assets...body parts that could get her into major trouble if she doesn't cover them up. This movie is Star Wars with a libido...and should be aimed at a "Hard R" rating!!!

For a character like that, you need an actress that has never played a sexy role before--someone that you would not expect in this role, ala Jane Fonda when she was first cast in the part of Barbarella. This has to be the coming out party for said actress. She has to be willing to go topless, do full nudity...and or, heated sex scenes. It should significantly arouse controversy and public debate as Jane Fonda once did. My vote for the role would be a young actress in her early 20s, late teens-- someone like Vanessa Hudgens, but without the already murky background...or Natalie Portman...before she went nude, and was turned out on the big screen--or Anne Hathaway before she went nude in Havoc.

Yep, you want the girl who plays Barbarella to be seen as the girl nextdoor...well, at least until such time as the film is released, that is!!!

I happen to like Rodriguez style of film. It always seems like what he films HE wants to make and you can tell that ALL the actors on the set have a lot of fun.

As for this movie though, frankly I do not care for. The original was such a bad movie that I think it needs to be remade...But not by Rodriguez. I think he should go and do Machette or Sin City 2 and skip this one....The orginal really was horribily stupid...Laughable even...

You missed the joke Swan Song...the movie is a Fellini-esque take on the subject matter. The look of the film is no more better than Star Crash: the difference however...is the film's subversive sexual politics. That is the in joke. It's about a woman...who is being sexually seduced, but doesn't seemed to understand that simple fact. As well, it is about men...and our seemingly out of control sex drives. If a woman looks good, or close to it...and appears to be open for sex, whether she be friend, stranger or enemy...a man, some when, or somewhere...is trying to get her into bed...even in the middle of a damn battle or an espionage plot.


Imagine if Princess Leia crash landed on a planet dedicated to being a real life porn movie...and despite her attempts to be taken seriously, everyone on the planet, friend or foe, just wants to get her into bed!!! That's Barbarella!!!

BTW...have you noticed that Ain't It Cool News has suspiciously avoided touching this story??? Now I know Harry Knowles has tried to count himself as a friend of Rodriguez...but, I'm starting to think that Rodriguez may be a silent investor in that web site. Hence, if you say anything negative about Robert Rodriguez there...you instantly get censored.

metalwater is the man...nuff said...lol

#1 - gauleyboy420 - The nepotism is even worse than that, don't forget that Jane Fonda was married to the director Roger Vadim at the time. Some men cast their girlfriends, he cast the missus.

metalwater, again I need to call you on this statement:

"For a character like that, you need an actress that has never played a sexy role before--someone that you would not expect in this role, ala Jane Fonda when she was first cast in the part of Barbarella."

Let's take a look at some of Fonda's pre-Barbarella films:

Tall Story - Fonda's first movie is a sex comedy featuring Fonda in a steamy shower scene.

Walk on the Wild Side - She plays a prostitute in a bordello by the name of Kitty Twist (a name worthy of Bond girls)

The Chapman Report - An exploitation flick loosely based on the Kinsey Report (granted, Fonda was cast as the frigid housewife).

Any Wednesday - Fonda plays mistress to a business man.

Then of course there's her pre-Barbarella movies she made with Vadim, which were French and much more open in terms of sexuality:

La Ronde - The whole movie is about a series of infidelities, with lots of bed-hopping.

La Curee - Finds Fonda married to a much older man, who then cheats on him with his son from a previous marriage.

By the time Fonda starred as Barbarella, she had been featured in at least 14 movies - many of them dealt with sex, either the overt sexual romps of her French films, or the more conservative (but often sexually-charged) American movies. So prior to Barbarella, she had played every role from naive girl learning about sex to cunning woman using sex to manipulate, and just about every degree in between. The first eight years of Fonda's career she was frequently cast as a "sex kitten" (even in such innoucous fare as Cat Ballou). Barbarella did not introduce an unknown Jane Fonda to the world - rather, it was the crowning achievement of her sex kitten phase.

THANK YOU SNALLY
Barbarella isn't some cinematic masterpiece that needs to be handled, and cast "just right" AND yeah right Fonda, a virginal actress I shot milk out of my nose when I read that.
The only reason I ever watched it was to look at Fonda's sweet sweet ass fighting stuff.
The same reason I'd watch McGowan's sweet sweet ass fight ...stuff
AND Rodriguez is immensely talented, I am almost to the point of stopping coming to this site where I constantly read (from geeks (don't get all puffy I'm a geek too) who sit in front of their computers all day ) about How "all these directors are talentless" and " there is some sort of conspiracy" and "why don't they let ME do it, I'd do it right" well THEN DO IT AND Quit posting about how you'd do it. Shit or get off the pot.
wrrlykam, thanks for the additional info.

She's cute, but I think this is a bad idea for a movie.

I'll take your word for it Snally Gaster, but how many American audiences saw those other films, States side(???)--not many I would guess--I've never heard of them, and I'm a big film fan.

Now, judging by what you printed...you even seemed to admit that none of the films that you used as an example are as sexually overt as Barbarella. There appears to be degrees of implied sexuality that you outlined the movies as having, but Barbarella is full out Fellini...and we all know it. Its in your face sex...no dancing around it. And at the time, in America...the American audience looked at Jane Fonda as the sweet girl nextdoor--the daughter of Hollywood royalty...so Barbarella was a major shock to...and for, U.S. audiences and critics alike. Now...if people saw Rose McGowen on screen in the role, they would just think another casting couch whore--and in this case...one who destroyed a family. That will be the whole push of the media when or if this film is made...should McGowen get the role. Do you recall what happened to Russell Crowes career and that of Meg Ryan thanks to their affair during the making of the movie Proof Of Life??? Both of their careers tanked and have never been the same. Why??? Meg was a married woman who broke up her so-called happy marriage because she developed a thing for Russell Crowe after seeing him star in Gladiator, so she used her star power to get him cast alongside of her in Proof Of Life in order to get him into bed...damn her husband!!! Talk about about a casting couch home wrecker blunder...as it is one that led to the film tanking. The only thing the media wanted to talk about was the on-set affair that destroyed Meg's marriage. Even the director claim that the affair destroyed his movie and he had to cut a sex scene to help protect the image of the two stars from being soured any further. But...I digress...back to comparisons of Jane Fonda and Rose McGowen romancing their directors.

So what is the difference between Fonda and McGowen??? Jane Fonda's then director husband needed her, far more than she needed him. She could have gotten any film in Hollywood that she wanted at the time, because of her great acting ability and star power alone, not to mention her father was Henry Fonda...one of the most famous and well respected actors in the history of film.

Rose McGowen on the other hand, is just another desperate actress--and not a very good one at that...who happens to be in need of a role, any role...quality not required--hence her starring roles in Planet Terror and Death Proof.

Here's An Excerpt From Wikipedia--Barbarella is famous for a sequence in which the title character, played by Jane Fonda, undresses in zero gravity during the opening credits. (Her breasts are mostly concealed by the credits but can occasionally be glimpsed.)

The whole film is played in a very tongue-in-cheek manner, especially when it comes to the frequent (but non-explicit) sex scenes.
"Variety" claimed that "Despite a certain amount of production dash and polish and a few silly-funny lines of dialog, Barbarella isn't very much of a film. Based on what has been called an adult comic strip [by Jean Claude Forest], the Dino De Laurentiis production is flawed with a cast that is not particularly adept at comedy, a flat script, and direction which can't get this beached whale afloat."[1] Another major critic at the time claimed the film was a "mix of poor special effects and the Marquis de Sade" However, it has gained a cult following since its re-release in 1977 on home video, and has had considerable influence on pop culture in the decades following its original release.

And this is from IMDB--Who seduces an angel? Who strips in space? Who conveys love by hand? Who gives up the pill? Who takes sex to outer space? Who's the girl of the 21st century? Who nearly dies of pleasure?

After an in-flight anti-gravity striptease (masked by the film's opening titles), Barbarella (Jane Fonda), a 41st century astronaut, lands on the planet Lythion and sets out to find the evil Durand Durand in the city of Sogo, where a new sin is invented every hour. There, she encounters such objects as the Exessive Machine, a genuine sex organ on which an accomplished artist of the keyboard, in this case, Durand Durand himself, can drive a victim to death by pleasure, a lesbian queen who, in her dream chamber, can make her fantasies take form, and a group of ladies smoking a giant hookah which, via a poor victim struggling in its glass globe, dispenses Essance of Man. You can't help but be impressed by the special effects crew and the various ways that were found to tear off what few clothes our heroine seemed to possess. Based on the popular French comic strip. Written by alfiehitchie.