Rose McGown to Star in Red Sonja Remake

From the “wha?” department…

Rose McGowan is set to star in a remake of the ridiculous classic 80’s fantasy Red Sonja. Even stranger, the movie is set to be made by her boyfriend, Robert Rodriguez.

If you don’t remember Red Sonja I don’t blame you. I’m pretty sure the only reason I do is that my little brother watched it on about 200 times on an endless loop (on Beta, nonetheless). The basic premise is that Sonja is a female version of Conan the Barbarian, and she has to save her world from an evil bad guy out to take it over.

Now that you’re caught up, let’s count the ways this is a bad idea. First, in the original Sonja is played by Brigitte Nielsen, a 6′ 1″ Dane who is built to play an ass-kicking Valkyrie. McGowan is 5′ 4″. Not exactly barbarian material.

Second, Rodriguez is a good director, but he doesn’t exactly have any experience in the fantasy genre. He does great with Mexican westerns (Desperado, El Mariachi) and zombie flicks (Planet Terror), so-so with comic book movies (Sin City), and I’m assuming fairly well with kids movies (all the Spy Kids movies). But what makes us think he’ll be any good at epic fantasy?

Finally, and most importantly, the original movie was just stupid. So how about we just leave it alone? To wither and die. Like it should.