Jane Fonda on Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Barbarella’ Remake: ‘I Try Not’ to Think About It
Samantha Bergeson
Jane Fonda is sharing what she really thinks about the upcoming “Barbarella” remake starring Sydney Sweeney.
The “80 For Brady” actress admitted that she just can “try not to” think about the slated reboot film based on Jean-Claude Forest’s French comic book series. Fonda starred in the original 1968 feature directed by Roger Vadim as a futuristic astronaut who is tasked with stopping a megalomaniac scientist threatening to reintroduce evil into the galaxy.
“I try not to [think about it]. Because I worry about what it’s going to be,” Fonda told The Hollywood Reporter of the planned remake. “I had an idea of how to do it that [original producer] Dino De Laurentiis, when he was still alive, wouldn’t listen to. But it could have been a truly feminist movie.”
“Euphoria” Emmy nominee Sweeney will star in and is believed to be executive-producing the Sony Pictures remake; a director has not yet been publicly attached.
“Only God Forgives” auteur Nicolas Winding Refn announced a reimagined “Barbarella” for Amazon Prime Video in 2013, saying at the time, “‘Barbarella’ is what ‘Barbarella’ wants to be for every given generation.” Refn called his proposed TV series “the ultimate fetish” that was rooted in his dream of casting Christina Hendricks as Wonder Woman.
“It seemed like an impossible dream, and that’s why I switched my attention to ‘Barbarella,'” Refn said. “Because ‘Barbarella’ came at a time when I was very vocal about wanting to do ‘Wonder Woman,’ and not getting very
far with it.”
The “Barbarella” TV series would be “even better” and more feminist than Refn’s take on Wonder Woman, he added, noting, “I have daughters, and I want to make a movie that shows that women are more powerful than men.”
Eventually, the “Barbarella” rights were shelved by the estate as Refn said during the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2016, claiming that society doesn’t “need to remake everything” and instead opted to take on “Neon Demon.” Refn’s ties with Amazon were also seemingly cut after he alleged the streamer buried his noir series “Too Old to Die Young.”
