Comic book writer Gail Simone (Red Sonja, Deadpool, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, Domino) has taken to Twitter to reveal that Conan The Barbarian actor Jason Momoa (Aquaman, Game of Thrones) once wanted her to write a treatment for a potential crossover film featuring Jason’s Conan and Rose McGowan’s Red Sonja. The project never actually written but seemed kind of interesting since there were plans for a new Red Sonja film before the Conan reboot was released.
The film rights to both Conan and Red Sonja had been acquired by the same production company Millennium Films (formerly known as Nu Image) around this time, in theory, a crossover could have happened.
At the time, Rose was attached to the Red Sonja reboot with Robert Rodriguez set produce, the project had been promoted at San Diego Comic-Con 2008 with mock-up posters/teaser images. She had recently worked with Robert on the his Grindhouse installment Planet Terror playing the film’s leading heroine Cherry Darling. It played in theaters as a double-feature with Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, which also featured Rose in the small supporting role of Pam. McGowan ended up with a role in 2011’s Conan The Barbarian playing a witch villain named Marique in heavy special effects makeup.
SIMONE: “Jason Momoa wanted me to write a Conan/Red Sonja treatment for a movie crossover featuring him as Conan and Rose McGowan as Sonja. Nothing came of it, but it would have been a blast to do. He pitched me the whole idea while we were in a van through a city in New Zealand (can’t remember which). He’s just a very enthusiastic, lovely guy and I liked him immediately.”
Conan The Barbarian didn’t connect with audiences, so there was never sequel made and Jason Momoa eventually landed his supporting part as Khal Drogo in HBO’s hit fantasy series Game of Thrones. That success on television led to him landing the Aquaman role in Warner Bros’ DC Comics franchise. More recently, Netflix has acquired the rights to Robert E. Howard’s Conan allowing them to make films, television shows, and animated projects.
Robert Rodriguez’s incarnation of Red Sonja never actually came together as the filmmaker instead pivoted to producing 20th Century Fox’s Predators and other subsequent things like taking over directing duties on James Cameron’s Alita: Battle Angel. A newer version of Red Sonja had Millennium Films hire disgraced X-Men franchise director Bryan Singer before he was ultimately replaced with Transparent’s Jill Soloway in the summer of 2019. However, it’s been a couple of years since Jill’s announcement and unclear if it will ever get made.
SOURCE: GAIL SIMONE
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