After its bizarre decision to hire Bryan Singer, an unreliable director accused of numerous instances of sexual assault, to helm the female-centered Red Sonja—an action film about a sexual assault survivor—Millennium Films has now appointed Transparent creator Jill Soloway as writer and director of the Conan The Barbarian spin-off. This comes via Deadline, who report that Soloway is “coming in with a bold new take.” Soloway’s Topple Productions partner Andrea Sperling will join as a producer.
“I can’t wait to bring Red Sonja’s epic world to life,” Soloway said. “Exploring this powerful mythology and evolving what it means to be a heroine is an artistic dream come true.”
Deadline makes it sound as if the project is starting from scratch, saying that casting will “start anew” and that a script for Soloway’s version has yet to be written. It’s unclear how far along Singer was on the project, but one might assume some progress was made—Millennium Films’ Avi Lerner initially stood behind Singer, after all, calling the decades’ worth of allegations against the Bohemian Rhapsody director “agenda driven fake news.”
Before beginning work on Red Sonja, Soloway will close out Transparent with a musical finale. That drops sometime this fall.