Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney is attached to play the lead in a new Barbarella movie for Sony Pictures that she would also executive produce for the studio, Above the Line has confirmed.
There’s no writer or director attached to the project just yet, but the film will be based on the French comic book series by Jean Claude Forest that was turned into a 1968 movie starring Jane Fonda.
That film followed an astronaut from the 41st century who must stop evil scientist Durand Durand from using his Positronic Ray to poison the galaxy with evil. Barbarella was never a box office hit but it has developed a cult following in the decades since its release.
In the works since 2020, the Barbarella reboot keeps Sweeney in business with Sony, as she also stars in the studio’s Madame Web movie alongside Dakota Johnson, plus she’s set to produce and star in The Registration.
When that project was announced, plot details were being kept under wraps, as Madison Lawson‘s book had yet to be published, but now that it’s out, it has a doozy of a plot.
The Registration takes place in a world where everyone is allowed to commit one murder in their lifetimes, so long as they register their intended victim beforehand and carry out the mission within 14 days. Sweeney will play Lynell Mize, a woman who is in line to register her childhood abuser when she overhears a stranger registering her to be killed. That gives her two weeks to find out who is trying to kill her and why. And the kicker? Multiple people have used their one Registration on her.
That sounds pretty good, right? Certainly better than Barbarella, but hey, I understand that it’s a valuable piece of IP and the rights holders couldn’t just let it languish. Sweeney is actually a coup for the project, and I’m not surprised Sony picked this one up with her attached even though it was actually Paramount that released the original movie.
Sweeney is coming off dual Emmy nominations for The White Lotus and Season 2 of Euphoria. She’s producing a series adaptation of The Players Table and will soon be seen alongside Simon Rex in the indie movie National Anthem. She’s represented by Paradigm, and Deadline broke the news about her casting in Barbarella.
