Bryan Singer is out, but Millennium Films is moving forward with plans to adapt the Barbarian comic book ‘Red Sonja’ into a film. Singer will be replaced by Jill Soloway, creator of the award-winning Amazon series ‘Transparent’. It also appears that Ashley Edward Miller‘s screenplay is being tossed out, as Soloway is expected to write her own. According to Deadline, “Soloway is coming in with a bold new take.” Soloway’s partner at Topple Productions, Andrea Sperling comes aboard as a producer.
Soloway declared:
“I can’t wait to bring Red Sonja’s epic world to life. Exploring this powerful mythology and evolving what it means to be a heroine is an artistic dream come true.”
This fall, Soloway will wrap up ‘Transparent’ with ‘The Transparent Movie Musicale Finale’. Coincidentally, that series is ending after its star Jeffrey Tambor was accused of sexual harassment by two women. He was officially fired last February, and the finale will address his character, Maura’s death.
RELATED: Bryan Singer Was Quietly Let Go From The ‘Red Sonja’ Movie
Of course, Singer’s firing from ‘Red Sonja’ also followed a sex scandal. It was recently disclosed that Singer will pay $150,000 to settle his most recent accusation, that he assaulted a 17-year-old boy in 2003. In addition to that, news has begun to surface that Singer frequently failed to show up to set on his most recent films, ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and that he had been let go from those projects as well, with others quietly stepping in to finish them. (For the record, Simon Kinberg, who directed the recent dud ‘Dark Phoenix’ completed ‘Apocalypse’, while ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was finished by Dexter Fletcher, who went on to direct ‘Rocketman’.)
Despite the sex abuse allegations, as recently as March, Millennium Films’ Avi Lerner declared that he planned to keep Singer for ‘Red Sonja’ until Lerner was unable to acquire a distribution deal for the film, so long as Singer was involved.
Actor/director Amber Tamblyn, who happens to be a lifelong ‘Red Sonja’ fanatic, lobbied to take over, but it doesn’t seem that that worked out.
With work on ‘Red Sonja’ starting over from scratch, it is believed that Soloway will direct another film first, possibly another action movie to prepare her for this project.
Stay tuned for updates!
