Barbarella Movie Officially Scrapped: The Fall Of Robert Rodriguez

It would seem that Robert Rodriguez’s long-suffering project, a remake of the iconic 70s exploitation flick Barbarella, has been put on hold indefinitely. The movie was supposed to be a star-making (aw!) vehicle for Rodriguez’s former fiancée, Rose McGowan. McGowan had previously worked with Rodriguez on his Grindhouse feature, Planet Terror. The pairing resulted in the dissolution of Rodriguez’s marriage to the mother of his 76 children and the threat that Rodriguez and McGowan would continue working together again and again and again. 

The two have since split, prompting some brief muttering about the possibility of Jessica Alba stepping into the Orgasmatron Jane Fonda originally made famous. But the whole project - which had a budget of over $80 million - has wiggled and moaned its way into the toilet, and that has made Robert Rodriguez really sad, because the movie was going to feature a lot of tits:

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.’

It was a real bummer. 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.

Always thinking of the kids, that Robert.

So what went wrong here? For one, Rose McGowan. For two, Rose McGowan. For three, wanting to spend massive amounts of money on the remake of a campy classic so as to distract from the awfulness that is Rose McGowan. And, finally, Rose McGowan.
 

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Rodriguez’s ‘Barbarella’ Adaptation Is Dead [MTV Movies Blog]