Photo: Paramount Pictures

I don't know about you, but I thought the original Barbarella starring Jane Fonda and directed by Roger Vadim back in 1968 was terrible and the idea of a remake starring Rose McGowan in the title role under the direction of Robert Rodriguez seemed just a little too on the nose to be worthy of too much attention. Then again, back when rumors began swirling saying Universal had passed on the project as a result of the budget and the attachment of McGowan as the lead, the actress came out to squash the rumors all while talking down the original…

"The original doesn’t have a lot to go on plot-wise," she says. "It’s one thing to do a remake of something that could have been much better story wise even if it was fantastic visually. It's another thing to remake something flawless. That way if yours isn’t that good at least yours is better than that one."

Back when McGowan gave that quote to MTV she also said costumes had been made and half the sets, including her spaceship, had been built. I wonder how much truth is in that considering Rodriguez has now told MTV the project is pretty much dead.

Rodriguez tells MTV's Eric Ditzian, "It came to the point where [a company from] Germany offered us a $70 million budget, which would have been by far the biggest budget I ever would have had for a movie. But I had to shoot it in Germany and post it in Germany. Nothing against Germany, but I have five kids and I was like, 'God, I don’t know if we can do that. I don’t know if I can be away that long.'"

Sounds like an honorable and reasonable reason, but it sounds like production hadn't gotten as far as McGowan had said with Rodriguez adding, "We had all this artwork and screen tests of what it would look like. It was a really cool, R-rated, sexy—almost like that [1981 animated] movie, Heavy Metal — version of a Star Wars movie. Something that no one ever could get to see. It was gonna be really great."

I wonder what this means for the other projects double-R was planning on making with his muse including Red Sonja and Woman in Chains!

Up next for Rodriguez is Shorts for Warner Bros. set for release on August 7. Beyond that there is talk of Nerverackers, Sin City 2, The Jetsons and Machete. Neverackers has a release date already set for April 16, 2010 and there is talk Rodriguez may shoot Machete this summer.

Related post categories: Production Update : Robert Rodriguez

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