The Red Sonja Movie Will Be R-Rated

Red Sonja has taken a long while to make her way back to the big screen for the upcoming feature film set to bring the character into the limelight once more, and now that project has confirmed one essential feature that fans have been waiting for.

Originally created for Marvel Comics in the 70s, Red Sonja has remained a fan favorite among readers who fell for the character over the course of her original stint at the company and her subsequent publications elsewhere, most notably at Dynamite Comics. Over the years, the character has seen a lot of adaptations across media, such as novels, role-playing games, animation, and more. A live-action film was also released back in the 80s, leveraging the character’s comic relation to Conan the Barbarian and including Arnold Schwarzenegger by the same token. This film was a critical and commercial failure, and fans have long since called for another go at a live-action adaptation. That dream is closer to reality than ever, with Millennium Films’ 2017 announcement actually coalescing into a Red Sonja movie with Matilda Lutz in the lead in place of original casting Hannah John-Kamen.

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With John-Kamen’s scheduling conflicts out of the way, Red Sonja was able to begin production officially in 2022. While it’s been revealed that filming is long done, fans have still had to wait through the lengthy post-production without many updates, with a producer explaining that ‘[the] film is very rooted and very real if you will, but there are a couple of sequences that we have to get the CGI right so that you don’t look at it and go, ‘Oh, that creature wasn’t quite there.’ Despite this, there’s been one massive win for the project, and it’s one that’s been a long time coming. As reported by Sci-Fi & Fantasy Gazette, the Red Sonja film has now officially been rated R for ‘strong/bloody violence,’ a fact that is sure to excite eager fans of the character tremendously.

This is expected, but still big news, for the project. More so than most, Red Sonja’s stories are heavily linked to the brutal and oft-bloody nature of her world, and a live-action adaptation that tries to skirt that would do a major disservice to Sonja and the fans. While certain comics have given censors more than just ‘strong/bloody violence’ to worry about, that is, in fact, the only mature theme that is central to the character. This news is also a win for a production that certainly needs one to keep fans in the loop. The Red Sonja film has suffered through a lot of challenges, from a sexual assault scandal forcing a complete creative restart to losing the planned lead and other cast members before filming could kick off. Through all this, the project has managed to hold out much longer than the myriad attempts that have spluttered since the first film, and hardcore fans have been just as steadfast.

An R rating is yet another reason for fans to believe in the project, which is in a pretty good place. Lutz looked great in the Red Sonja first-look photo and even better in leaked trailer footage that some fans might have already seen. The only problem left to overcome is the low confidence in the film’s release, which is currently optimistically set for the tail end of the year. Fortunately, this isn’t a WBD project, so fans can be fairly certain that the fully shot film will eventually make it to theaters and that it will be appropriately R-rated when it does.

The Red Sonja movie is currently in post-production, with a late 2025 release window.

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Source: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Gazette