If you listen to the Geek Actually Podcast you will know that for the last two weeks we have been discussing the casting confirmations and rumours of the new ‘Conan’ remake directed by Marcus Nispel. So far we have Jason Momoa (‘Stargate: Atlantis’) cast as Conan, Ron Perlman (‘Hellboy’) as his father (replacing the rumoured Mickey Rourke) and Stephen Lang (‘Avatar’) looks to be confirmed as Khalar Singh, the bad guy of the piece.
However, in a new piece of casting, Rose McGowan (‘Planet Terror’) has been added to the cast as a rumoured evil half-human/half-witch character. The reason that this is odd is she was cast to play the title character in the Robert Rodriguez produced remake of Robert E. Howard’s ‘Red Sonja’ (see the poster at the head of this post). Now she is cast in the ‘Conan’ remake, does this finally kill off the on again/off again production of ‘Red Sonja’?
Details of the character that she is playing in ‘Conan’ are sketchy at this time, I am hoping (I think hopelessly) that she isn’t playing the character mentioned above but instead is Red Sonja in some sort of crossover cameo to test run the character. I like the character of Red Sonja from the books and she deserves a better screen treatment than the awful 1985 Richard Fleischer film starring Brigitte Nielsen.
‘Conan’ started filming this month and is scheduled for release in 2011.
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The Red Sonja and Conan trademarks are owned by different companies (Red Sonja LLC and CPI respectively). In return for having the right to publish “The Shadow of the Vulture” (the original Red Sonya story from which Red Sonja was created), CPI have allowed RSLLC to use the Hyborian Age as the setting, but with no references to Conan himself.
Therefore, Red Sonja could never be in a crossover with Conan, nor could Conan have a cameo in Red Sonja. It is perfectly possible, however, for Rose McGowan to play this witch character in Conan while also being Red Sonja, for the same reason Arnold was both Conan and Kalidor in the '80s films.
Wow, that is great information taranaich. We talked about this on the last episode. I new that the rights had been separated back in the Arnold days but I was unaware that they were still apart. I would have assumed that after this much time they would have reverted back to Robert E. Howard's estate. You are well informed and I applaud you for that.
[…] Conan news: Mickey Rourke out, Ron Perlman in. Check. Rose McGowan joins the cast…wait what about Red Sonja? http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/03/14/conan-casting-ron-perlman-replaces-mickey-rourke-as-conans-dad-gi-joes-breaker-joins-cast/ and https://geekactually.com/2010/03/18/does-this-mean-red-sonja-is-now-officially-dead/ […]