With a remake in limbo for years, the pilot for Gaumont International Television’s “Barbarella” has finally found a home at Amazon Studios. “Skyfall” writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade wrote the pilot based on the sexy French comic book character created by Jean-Claude Forest.
In the 1968 French-Italian feature, actress Jane Fonda portrayed the futuristic sci-fi title character assigned by the President of Earth to retrieve the Positronic Ray weapon from its evil inventor Durand Durand in an unknown region of space named Tau Ceti. Capitalizing on the sexual revolution at the time, the film placed Barbarella in situations with a colorful cast of characters that required her sexuality to get her out of trouble.
The series is currently in search of a show runner with Nicolas Refn (“Valhalla Rising”) set to executive produce alongside Martha De Laurentiis, whose late husband Dino produced the original film. Refn will also direct. GIT has two other series in production – “Hannibal” on NBC and “Hemlock Grove” on Netflix – with a third, “Narco,” looking to get a green light from Netflix.
Sources: deadline, wikipedia