Edgar Wright in Talks to Direct Sydney Sweeney's Barbarella Remake

Jane and Honey Goldman would co-write the sci-fi remake.

By Jenna Anderson

A few fan-favorite creators might be joining Sony's Barbarella reboot. On Monday, reports revealed that Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho director Edgar Wright is in talks to helm Barbarella. The film, which is set to star and be executive produced by Sydney Sweeney, has been in development since 2022. According to the reports, Wright initially took a meeting with Sweeney when the project was first announced, but had only committed to developing it at that time.

Additionally, the mother-daughter duo of Jane and Honey Goldman are in negotiations to co-write the script for Barbarella with Wright. Jane Goldman has a prolific career as a screenwriter, including X-Men: First Class, the Kingsman movies, and Stardust. Reports indicate that Barbarella would not be Sweeney or Wright's next film, as Wright is currently working on a reboot of The Running Man starring Sweeney's Anyone But You co-star, Glen Powell.

What Is Barbarella About?

Barbarella was created by Jean-Claude Forest to be serialized in V Magazine in 1962, and began to be collected in a standalone book years later. The comic followed the exploits of Barbarella, an astronaut from the 41st century who sets out to find and stop the evil scientist Durand Durand, whose Positronic Ray threatens to bring evil back into the galaxy. Barbarella was adapted into a 1968 film led by Jane Fonda, which has since become a cult classic. Multiple new comics inspired by the franchise have been published by Dynamite in recent years.

"I'm really excited to serve all the fits," Sweeney explained in an interview late last year. "But also, just it's such an iconic, fun character. And I want to keep that fun alive through Barbarella. So, I'm excited for everyone to see it."

Was There a Barbarella Sequel?

Initially, there were plans for a sequel to Fonda's Barbarella, which would have tentatively been titled Barbarella Goes Down. There were then efforts to reboot the franchise with a new film in the 2000s, which would have been directed by Robert Rodriguez, and later Robert Luketic, and starred Rose McGowan. That incarnation of the project ultimately fell apart due to budget and filming constraints. A musical adaptation was produced in 2004. In 2012, Amazon Studios and Gaumont International Television aimed to create a Barbarella television series, which would have been set in Asia and directed by The Neon Demon's Nicolas Winding Refn. 

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"Well, I don't own Barbarella, the estate does, but I decided to be more interested in the Neon Demon," Refn told The Playlist in 2016. "Plus there are other television things that caught my attention [because] I actually enjoy designing it from the beginning. It became… Barbarella, it was like Logan's Run: certain things are better left untouched. You don't need to remake everything."

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(Photo: Gary Miller/Getty Images, Paramount Pictures, Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images for A24)

h/t: Deadline

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