Millennium’s upcoming Red Sonja movie has cast Ant-Man and the Wasp star Hannah John-Kamen as its titular heroine, created in comics by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. Joey Soloway will direct and co-wrote the screenplay with Tasha Huo, showrunner and executive producer of Netflix and Legendary’s upcoming Tomb Raider animated series. “Hannah is a very talented actress who we’ve been following for years and she IS Red Sonja,” Soloway said in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter. “Her range, sensibilities and strength are all qualities we have been looking for and we couldn’t be more excited to embark on this journey together.”
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John-Kamen became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe play Ava Starr, a.k.a. Ghost in Ant-Man and the Wasp. She also starred in Peacock’s Brave New World and has played roles in The Stranger, Ready Player One, and Tomb Raider. She recently wrapped work on Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City.
Thomas and Windsor-Smith conceived of Red Sonja during their time working on Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian series in the 1970s. Sonja is an amalgamation of several others characters from the mind of Conan creator and pulp fiction legend Robert E. Howard, primarily his Red Sonya of Rogatino. Sonja, a sword and sorcery heroine capable of matching Conan’s exploits, proved popular enough to warrant a spinoff comic. While Marvel Comics continues to publish Conan comics (having regained the rights after ceding them to Dark Horse Comics years ago), Dynamite Entertainment is the publisher of Sonja’s continuing comics adventures.
Soloway previously compared their Red Sonja to Deadpool and The Dark Knight. “I can really have so much fun with Red Sonja,” Soloway told Deadline. “I see her a little bit more like the first kind of bad girl superhero. Sort of like the Batman of The Dark Knight or Deadpool, you know? The world is changing so much right now for superheroes, that I just really look forward to not only going to the edge of what I’ve ever written and directed before, but to the edge of the genre as well.”
Mark Canton and Courtney Solomon are producing the film with Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman of Campbell Grobman Films. Adrea Sperling of Topple and Yariv Lerner, Jeffrey Greenstein, Younger, Les Weldon, Joe Gatta, and Tanner Mobley of Millenium are also producers.
Millennium’s Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, and Traver SHort are executive producers, as are Luke Lieberman for Red Sonja LLC. and Nick Barrucci of Dynamite Entertainment. Dorothy Canton will also be an executive producer.
