new Red Sonja movie

[shevek]

So, there's talk of a new Red Sonja movie on the trade sites, funded by Millennium and Cinelou, and possibly screenwritten by
Ashley Miller (X-Men First Class, Thor). I heard that the previous attempt to make a Red Sonja movie was stymied by the
failure of the Conan reboot. But on the Wikipedia page for Red Sonja, it said it never happened because Rose McGowan got injured.
I tend to not believe that, because there are a number of actresses who could take on that role - I think it was simply seen as not
financially viable at the time given the flop of Conan.

But the controversy begins almost immediately, because they've tapped Bryan Singer to be the director, and he's currently
negotiating for a big payday. Singer is a target of the #MeToo movement, and allegations against him surfaced as long ago as
2014 just before X-Men Days of Future Past came out. He is currently still being sued by a man who claims Singer raped him
at age 17. None of this has been adjudicated as of yet.

On the other side of the equation, most of the world (i.e. the major market for a film like this, which will probably only do
fair to middling in the US) doesn't care about any of that. All of the X-Men films that Singer did were hits, even if he was involved
in a handful of other movies that flopped. And he has recently released what has become the highest-grossing musical biopic of
all time - Bohemian Rhapsody. No small feat.

However, practical publicity types might agree with the progressive identity politics brigade and say that, sure, Bryan Singer is gay and so his
advocacy of the Freddie Mercury makes sense, but when it comes to presenting a "female-empowered" version of Red Sonja (as they say in the
articles...Lord knows what that means, but it can't be anything good for the bikini chainmail costume), the story of his allegation will overshadow
the publicity they'd want to generate for the movie, and it'd be all about #MeToo instead of Red Sonja. They also argue that there are so many
other 'unblemished' directors that it doesn't even make sense to put the eggs in Bryan Singer's basket. Specifically, there are any number of
female directors who could hit this out of the park with equal aplomb.

I tend to agree, not out of political correctness, but because there are so many possible candidates and Bryan Singer's already had a comeback win.
My dream would be to see a female director take on this movie, run the operation like a normal mainstream industry expert, and make it work brilliantly without toning down the sexiness of the character or drenching the film in sociopolitical dogma, yet still make it both empowering for the female audience and visually exciting for the male audience. Patty Jenkins was able to do that with Wonder Woman, obviously, so what they need to do is 1) find another Patty Jenkins and 2) find another Gal Gadot who can hit Red Sonja out of the park.

No small order. And I'm fine with a male director accomplishing the exact same goals, as well. What are your thoughts on the matter? (Assuming this movie ever gets made in the first place)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... ja-1148877

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmende ... 1f9b4dbb85

[Femina]

People's annoyance with Singer in the role is two pronged. There's the social angle where people are annoyed that they would hire him considering the allegations, of which there isn't really an argument. If Depp can be hired on to Fantastic Beasts after wife beating instead of lounging around in jail for assault like an ordinary person, then there's no reason Singer can't keep working after escaping the consequences of what he did, that's a Hollywood problem that needs to be solved but not one that ought to be picky on who it lets direct/star in what. There's also the fact that commonly men fail to encapsulate what being a woman IS and so their direction of women tends to include characters that are what men think women are rather than what women actually are....... but that's not actually a fact, more like a commonality. There's plenty of movies staring women that a man directed and who represents women well... the question will be if that's the case here or not. WW proved pretty amicably that a woman in the directors chair was a good call for the first (well first REAL attempt anyway) female lead superhero film and so some people probably just want to continue that trend to see where its going.

The other prong is that Singer hasn't instilled as much confidence in himself with his later X-0men films as he did way way in the way back when of X2: X-men united... and oddly, the whole phoenix thing coming up almost seems like its making some of the exact same mistakes as the LAST attempt at a phoenix thing which he wasn't involved in.

All that really matters in the end is if its good. If it is, people will forgive whatever occurs to make it so, if its not good people will come down on it with the full force of a burning internet. SSDD.

[tallyho]

I would just say that allegations are just that - allegations - (innocent until proven guilty and all that) - regardless of who they are leveled at. I don't know him, or any of the facts of whats been said against him. Maybe they are true , maybe they aren't i DON'T KNOW. But if he hasn't been charged, I don't see an issue with him plying his trade

[Dogfish]

As far as the allegations go there are so many and they go back so far that I just wouldn't be hiring him for anything. Hiring somebody for a job isn't a court of law and if several people are saying, "Watch out, this bloke's a nonce" maybe don't hire him. I'm all for giving somebody a fair go and all that stuff, but when these allegations keep coming up, when people keep saying that he's popped up at this paedophile's party and that paedophile's party, then I dunno, maybe don't hire the guy. I mean the thing is, it's Hollywood. We know the place is heaving with sex offenders, we know it's got a frankly disgusting record for not throwing rapists and kiddie fiddlers under the bus even when they Clearly DId The Deed*, we know it's really hard to prove anything in court, and so there's so many creeps about if somebody pops up with multiple allegations to his name they probably did something.

Maybe I'm just a bad guy, but if I was hiring a director and the number of rumours they sexually abused a kid was more than zero, I'd not hire them. Fuck the courts. Courts have the burden of beyond reasonable doubt, that's a legal term. Doesn't apply to hiring a director. In Singer's case there's four solid enough allegations against him that they made it to the lawyers and assorted rumours going back twenty years.

More importantly there is absolutely nothing on the guy's list of credits that justifies the risk that he's a colossal nonce. He makes very bad films and has for years. There is nothing he brings to the table appropriate or appealing for a work like this. There are better directors, hundreds of them.

If he's just super unlucky and he's been dogged by false allegations for the last twenty years then so be it, sucks to be him, he should retire with his millions. I wouldn't risk it.

I think it's going to be a crap film, because he's a crap director, and I'm really disappointed. Honestly the amount he's getting paid makes me wonder if it's some sort of borderline scam like the Adam Sandler or Uwe Boll movies.


*I mean Woody Allen literally married his daughter. How have people still been working with that sick fuck?

[Void]

I'm inclined to agree with Tally. Besides, Rhapsody is a huge critical and commercial success right now, so his apparent reputation doesn't seem to have harmed that film's prospects. That more or less demonstrates that there wouldn't be any risk in hiring him here, and you'd be getting him while his stock is high.

Beyond that, if he has literally not been convicted of anything then there's not much reason to judge him on any other axis than the quality of his work - which is fine in my opinion. Anyways, whoever is behind the helm I would love to see a Red Sonja movie. I actually wouldn't mind if they sacrificed some of her sex appeal for more tight, consistent character design, but I'd probably gladly take it however they serve it.

[Dazzle1]

If they do this, make sure the lead gets some serious sword instruction.

[Dogfish]

Am not sure why folks are mentioning Bohemian Rhapsody as an example of a successful Bryan Singer project. He was fired from the production because of his unprofessional behaviour. Whether the guy sexually assaults underage boys or not, he's by all accounts an absolute disaster to work with.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/20 ... ior-report

There are probably worse directors out there, but him getting this job with his past record still seems like madness or blackmail or something.

[shevek]

Dogfish, the reason why it is a "successful" Bryan Singer project is because Bohemian Rhapsody is very financially successful and Singer was the director of it.

There are times when I disagree with Dogfish over matters of sociopolitical bent, but this is one time when I would tend to agree, based on the article I read above. Of course, Vanity Fair always has a #MeToo axe to grind, but even so, the track record speaks for itself, and when you could easily find a dozen other people to direct Red Sonja, I don't see why you'd pay a lot of money just to receive headaches that you can predict are coming.

Sword instruction is important, I'm sure, but I would think that some grunt work on that end could be accomplished by a stunt double, no? I read that Brie Larson trained for several months to get into fighting form for Captain Marvel, only to find out that she didn't really need to. Red Sonja is going ot be a more strenuous role, though. I would admire any actress who could hit it out of the park (for our UK friends, that means a home run in baseball).

[Dogfish]

The thing is this isn't really a #MeToo thing. The guy has a record for being dodgy going back decades.

This is something we had to deal with in the UK a few years back, a lot of witnesses started coming forward and it blew the lid off the fact that a large number of BBC radio DJs and TV presenters back in the 70s and 80s (when they were properly huge stars) were getting away with abusing women and often children regularly. There were political connections. There were fixers. There were people who hushed up the witnesses and got the police to look the other way. This was organised systematic abuse on a scale that you don't normally find outside the Catholic Church.

I mean this kind of stuff feels like something out of one of those really grim Swedish thrillers with a name like "The Girl Who Slapped The Wombat" or whatever, but it's real. It happens. The church does it. Politicians do it. Minicab drivers in Bolton do it. And Hollywood has a big problem with it as we can plainly see. It has precedent, it's not some unbelievable, incredible conspiracy. This is what makes it kind of a side issue to #MeToo rather than part of the same mess. #MeToo is about people speaking about their own abuse, this is about people who often don't have a voice, who aren't necessarily actors at all, people that abusers see as completely expendable.

And so this is why I rage when I see guys like Singer still getting work. If there are people with incredibly poor track records with regards to professional conduct, with poor track records in terms of producing quality work, and who keep turning up in child molestation stories still walking into $10m jobs, then Hollywood is still an absolute fucking mess. And what's worse, to me, is that they can have something like the #MeToo movement happen but still nothing changes.

Phew. That's my rage vented. Going to be all chill and that from now on.

I don't expect the fighting will matter in this movie because it will be bad if Singer directs it. But hypothetically, if it was going to be good, I'd really like to see this movie done with a more realistic and less Hollywood style of fighting. Knowledge of medieval, dark age and ancient fighting techniques has improved massively in recent years and it would be great to see a movie actually use those techniques, not the windmilling idoicy of movies. One thing they could do is have the Sonja character actually use proper fighting moves, and have the enemies do the sort of clownish charging around hacking and slashing from the movies, because she'd then be able to kill them all very easily and convincingly.

[Femina]

hmmm.... not sure Red Sonja, the 'She Devil with a Sword' is the film I'd pick for a more realistic style of swordplay... she's a superpowered Barbarian babe who regularly does battle with her arch nemesis with magic powers... its not really a medieval 'dark age' genre film? The Conan stories are more of a fantasy 'post apocalypse' type thing... If she's not leaping around acrobatically kicking dudes (and occasionally goblins) in the face before decapitating them LotR style... they probably ought to just make a different movie no?

Hollywood has always known how real sword fighting works, they don't make action movies where people fight like they do in real life because its boring. Movies actually have to do a pretty delicate balance between realism and ignoring reality in order to remain entertaining. Stray TOO far into fantasy without reason and it breaks a persons suspension of disbelief, stray to far into realism and the movie gets dull... this isn't strictly true of films that don't rely on spectacle of course, but even in the most real of real 'losing mom to cancer' movies, the actors all deliver their lines with perfection that would make the most stringent of English tutors blush. Right off the bat, every film knows you can't keep an audience engaged if your characters talk like real people, there'd be to many 'uh's', dropped sentences, shrugs and nervous ticks. Reality bores people, that's why they go to watch made up stories to begin with.

You can overcome some dull action a bit if you've got stakes and emotion... but even that falls apart on repeat viewings. The fight between Vader and Obi-Wan in Star Wars is actually an objectively terrible action sequence outside of the banter and becomes more laughable each time you see it (That sick 360 Ben Kenobi throws in halfway through is so slow, your half blind, eighty year old grandma could stab him in the back). It survives because there appears to be history between the characters (And it really WAS just an 'appearance' of history when it first hit theaters mind you since decades of star wars stories had yet to be told) and raw acting talent from a couple of screen legends... but there isn't one line they deliver that couldn't have made for a better scene if the sequence was BOTH riveting narrative AND visually spectacular (The trick of course is not losing one to the other which many films fail at).

[Void]

I love the point about film dialogue. So true, and that goes for every medium of story telling from gritty novels to even the most true-to-life tv series. In the real world we're all awful, awful speakers. We unconsciously filter a lot of it out, but if you go back over any real conversation and try to transcribe it - it's largely unreadable nonsense.

I like an attempt to pass the eye test of being internally consistent and realistic, even if it wouldn't pass a true test. Like, I think they do a good job with Black Widow in the MCU. She kicks the maximum possible amount of ass for what her limits ought to be, she looks fantastic doing it, and my eyes are telling my brain that this, somehow, could be possible - when often that's just not true. That's the yardstick I'd like for the fighting in a film like this - play within the boundaries of what seems possible, but push that as far as you can, as coherently as you can. My main bug bear would be if her character is just a paper-thin representation of a trope.

The reason I mentioned his credit in Rhapsody was just to point out that his name hanging above the film did no harm to it. Though, even with his departure from the film I think he is literally responsible for the lion's share of the finished product. And the fight scenes in X-men and X-men 2 weren't that bad, were they... or were they? As for the potential outrage or disgust at his past antics... I dunno, I'm just not sure that Hollywood ought to be assuming guilt when it remains to be actually proven. Given that his name isn't inherently harmful and he hasn't been convicted, it would be like they were taking a stand against suspicion, which seems overzealous to me. All of that being said, it does sound like he's a total nightmare to work with. It defies belief that he wouldn't show up to work when he's the beating heart of such an expensive and time-sensitive operation. I hadn't read that before, and it does paint him as an unbearable diva.

[Dogfish]

hmmm.... not sure Red Sonja, the 'She Devil with a Sword' is the film I'd pick for a more realistic style of swordplay... she's a superpowered Barbarian babe who regularly does battle with her arch nemesis with magic powers... its not really a medieval 'dark age' genre film? The Conan stories are more of a fantasy 'post apocalypse' type thing... If she's not leaping around acrobatically kicking dudes (and occasionally goblins) in the face before decapitating them LotR style... they probably ought to just make a different movie no?

Hollywood has always known how real sword fighting works, they don't make action movies where people fight like they do in real life because its boring. Movies actually have to do a pretty delicate balance between realism and ignoring reality in order to remain entertaining. Stray TOO far into fantasy without reason and it breaks a persons suspension of disbelief, stray to far into realism and the movie gets dull... this isn't strictly true of films that don't rely on spectacle of course, but even in the most real of real 'losing mom to cancer' movies, the actors all deliver their lines with perfection that would make the most stringent of English tutors blush. Right off the bat, every film knows you can't keep an audience engaged if your characters talk like real people, there'd be to many 'uh's', dropped sentences, shrugs and nervous ticks. Reality bores people, that's why they go to watch made up stories to begin with.

You can overcome some dull action a bit if you've got stakes and emotion... but even that falls apart on repeat viewings. The fight between Vader and Obi-Wan in Star Wars is actually an objectively terrible action sequence outside of the banter and becomes more laughable each time you see it (That sick 360 Ben Kenobi throws in halfway through is so slow, your half blind, eighty year old grandma could stab him in the back). It survives because there appears to be history between the characters (And it really WAS just an 'appearance' of history when it first hit theaters mind you since decades of star wars stories had yet to be told) and raw acting talent from a couple of screen legends... but there isn't one line they deliver that couldn't have made for a better scene if the sequence was BOTH riveting narrative AND visually spectacular (The trick of course is not losing one to the other which many films fail at).

Conan is pre dark ages. The setting is kind of low fantasy few thousand years BC. There's hints at existing human civilisations like Egypt and Rome, and places like India and Russia, but everything is mostly played low key.

The good Conan movie is very low key on the acrobatics, and it's better for it. Sonja also isn't a ninja or some sort of elf. She should fight accordingly. The whole backflips and somersaults and blades all over the place thing was played out in the 90s with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Hollywood hasn't always known how swordfighting worked, literally nobody did until relatively recently. Turns out swords are really complicated and because nobody at the time wrote a lot of this down there are centuries of European history where for all we know about how to use the weapons they might as well be from Mars. Then folks got hold of some old German training manuals and started to put some ideas together. As yet almost nobody has tried to use swords in movies right, and it's not because it's boring it's because it'd mean sacking all the old stunt coordinators. FWIW there's nothing inherently boring about making things look realistic. Take John Wick for an example, of course it looks like a superninja from a videogame killing all the people, but underpinning the coolness are realistic weapons handling drills and such like (as opposed to something like The Matrix, which though also cool makes a point of being fantastical).

I'd like to see a Red Sonja who knows what she's about, keeps her feet, uses a weapon like she knows how, and kills everybody she sees in a way that looks convincing. Which should be doable. The thing with swords is that contrary to popular belief they aren't heavy and they aren't a strength based weapon. It's all about speed, balance, angles and thinking a few moves ahead.

But as I said before, I expect we'll get trash.

[Femina]

Are we talking about the FILM Conan stuff? Or the comic books/novels? Because in the source material, Conan has always been essentially superhuman. He's sort of the baseline for all Barbarian things D&D, Diablo 3, etc. I don't really think we should take the old Conan/Red Sonja films as the throughline for a modern feature film, those were low budget films that didn't really serve as great examples of their source material. While the comics have never been 'high' fantasy, they are more 'mid' than low fantasy. Furthermore, Conan doesn't take place pre-dark ages... it takes place in a fantasyland. The Egyptian/Roman/Mongolian/Nordic themed civilizations aren't actually Egypt or Rome or Mongol they are a fantastical civilizations inspired by those things (and generally ruins... I.e. postapocalyptic just not, you know, post apocalyptic of a civilization less advanced than what we're used to seeing post apocalyptic stories about). Conan fights succubi, giant snakes, half spider-half woman, etc. all things that would kill a man who fought like he wanted to kill an English horsemen.

The Hyperborean chronicles are just the wrong place to start looking for realism is what I'm saying, Red Sonja is superpowered... she shouldn't really fight like she isn't.

[tallyho]

Hollywood hasn't always known how swordfighting worked, literally nobody did until relatively recently. Turns out swords are really complicated and because nobody at the time wrote a lot of this down there are centuries of European history where for all we know about how to use the weapons they might as well be from Mars. Then folks got hold of some old German training manuals and started to put some ideas together. As yet almost nobody has tried to use swords in movies right, and it's not because it's boring it's because it'd mean sacking all the old stunt coordinators. FWIW there's nothing inherently boring about making things look realistic.

Not strictly true as Basil Rathbone was a fencing master and used to work extensively with his co stars to make the sword fights realistic. But bare in mind they have to be SAFE for the actors.
The fight in Mask of Zorro (I think it is) with possibly Tyrone Powers (might be wrong) is superb.

You are talking about hack-an' -slash swordplay with Sonja I grant you, but the danger is to think of a sword- as a sword- as a sword whereas they are different with different skillsets and SOME have been done correctly by Hollywood in the past is my point.

(This opens the door for you to respond with touche! )

[Dazzle1]

Hollywood hasn't always known how swordfighting worked, literally nobody did until relatively recently. Turns out swords are really complicated and because nobody at the time wrote a lot of this down there are centuries of European history where for all we know about how to use the weapons they might as well be from Mars. Then folks got hold of some old German training manuals and started to put some ideas together. As yet almost nobody has tried to use swords in movies right, and it's not because it's boring it's because it'd mean sacking all the old stunt coordinators. FWIW there's nothing inherently boring about making things look realistic.

Not strictly true as Basil Rathbone was a fencing master and used to work extensively with his co stars to make the sword fights realistic. But bare in mind they have to be SAFE for the actors.
The fight in Mask of Zorro (I think it is) with possibly Tyrone Powers (might be wrong) is superb.

You are talking about hack-an' -slash swordplay with Sonja I grant you, but the danger is to think of a sword- as a sword- as a sword whereas they are different with different skillsets and SOME have been done correctly by Hollywood in the past is my point.

(This opens the door for you to respond with touche! )

More recently Highlander


Adrian Paul is a trained Martial Artist which is why his short fight with Donny Yeuh look good on the other hand the actor who played Keel had no idea what he was doing

[Visitor]

Hollywood is spending more time having actors train for fight scenes instead of just using stunt doubles than a few decades ago. While fights aren't totally realistic, since they want to thrill an audience, they are making an attempt. Take a look at the rehearsals for "Atomic Blonde" for just one long fight sequence. Sure they pad the set to protect the actors from injuries, but they do make it believable.

[Lurkndog]

A good Red Sonja movie would be nice, but I find Bryan Singer's work very hit or miss. X-Men 1 and 2 were good, but Superman Returns was awful.

X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse had individual great scenes, but were not good movies overall. Both had really bad third acts.

Wait and see, I guess.

[Dogfish]

Looks like more stuff has surfaced about Singer. Several more men who were kids at the time. Quite a lot of them.

Also it appears the reason he was fired from Bohemian Rhapsody was because he basically went into hiding when Kevin Spacey got busted, I guess he thought that he might be about to get grabbed too. So if you're ever wondering how solid the allegations are, he thought they were serious enough that he ran out on the biggest movie of his career because of them.

Makes me sick to my arse he's still getting job offers.

[shevek]

At this point, it's clear that no Hollywood studio *other* than Avi Lerner will be willing to work with Bryan Singer.
So even if Red Sonja is going to be made, it's going to be absolutely lambasted by the Hollywood establishment, crushed by Twitter activists, and might even find a hard time getting distributed. One wonders what actress would take on this role with such baggage. It's a shame that the movie might be killed or at least severely hobbled by his involvement. Of course, there could be a flip side - if for some reason it turns out to be an amazing hit, that could polarize the entertainment culture even further.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/01/ ... isconduct/

[Dogfish]

Bryan Singer has finally been detached from the Red Sonja project, which is good because I can now actually watch it without feeling unclean.

[Lurkndog]

Bryan Singer has finally been detached from the Red Sonja project, which is good because I can now actually watch it without feeling unclean.

Yeah, but without Bryan Singer, will it actually get made?

[Dogfish]

Bryan Singer has finally been detached from the Red Sonja project, which is good because I can now actually watch it without feeling unclean.

Yeah, but without Bryan Singer, will it actually get made?

Hope so but frankly if it depends on his involvement then it is better that it doesn't.

[Dogfish]

Jill Soloway has replaced the nonce to direct Red Sonja. Does this mean it'll be good? Don't know. But it does mean I'll be actually able to watch the movie without worrying about whether anybody got raped behind the scenes.

[Nykron]

[shevek]

I wonder how long it'll take Hollywood Reporter to correct their un-journalistic mistake (the director is JOEY Soloway, not Joel).

What this movie could possibly turn out to be, I don't quite know. But it ain't gonna be your grandpa's Red Sonja, that's for sure,
because I very much doubt these two were in his vocabulary.

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[Dazzle1]

Only if she dyes her hair

[Dogfish]

I'm not optimistic, if this kind of epic hero fantasy movie was easy to make there would be more than one great one. But we'll see what we get I suppose.