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Movie and TV Discussion => Upcoming Releases => Topic started by: SRW1000 on February 12, 2026, 08:58:36 PM

Title: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: SRW1000 on February 12, 2026, 08:58:36 PM: (https://i.imgur.com/jXSqhkc.png)

From the Arrow Video press release:
On March 24, journey back to the time of swords and sorcery when the fantasy epic Red Sonja makes its 4K UHD world premiere. From the legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis and director Richard Fleischer (Conan The Destroyer) comes a female hero created by writer Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian). The limited edition release includes a 4K restoration from the original negative with new HDR grading by Arrow Films, hours of special features, and newly commissioned extras.

Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen, Cobra) has her life, family, and home torn apart by the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman, Conan the Barbarian) and her ruthless soldiers, driving Sonja to pray for revenge. A spirit blesses her with the strength of a great warrior, and she trains until her master can teach her no more, leaving her ready to exact revenge. Can Red Sonja save the world from the Queen and her powerful relic, and will Lord Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Barbarian) convince her that he is worthy enough to be her partner in this epic battle? The clanging steel of Red Sonja’s epic battles is accompanied by a rousing score from Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly).

Special features include a 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible); Original lossless mono audio and optional DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio; Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing; two brand new audio commentaries; newly filmed interviews with actor Ernie Reyes Jr. and others; an archival unreleased interview with poster artist Renato Casaro; an archival featurette on Arnold Schwarzenegger; an archival interview with assistant director Michel Ferry; the original theatrical trailer; image gallery; a collectors’ perfect-bound booklet; double-sided foldout poster; and six postcard-sized reproduction artcards.

Watch the trailer for Red Sonja here:

https://youtu.be/94j_JiVPtx8

Red Sonja is distributed by MVD Entertainment Group.
Fans will want to pick this one up. Arrow's been doing a great job with these new 4K scans, so it will never have looked better.

One minor addition to the press release above, while Robert E. Howard did create a character named Red Sonya, she was a warrior from the 16th century. Comic book writer Roy Thomas took that character, including her fiery red locks, and created the Red Sonja that this film is based on, placing her in the same time period as Conan. And while Arnold appears in this film, he's playing a different character.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: Barry on February 13, 2026, 02:33:53 PM: Red Sonya and Conan were both created by Robert E Howard, nearly 100 years ago and these stories were published in pulps. While he was alive. He died at age 30, his stories were never collected into one volume. I would not say he was unknown, but his works were not famous.

In 1970, at Marvel Comics, Roy Thomas convinced Stan Lee to give Conan his own series. Lee was reluctant because he never wrote for a character like that and gave it all to Roy. Roy made Conan famous!!!! And Roy introduced the character of Red Sonja, with a “j” and not a “y.” She became famous. But it is really Roy’s version of Conan that everyone knows. He did work on the movies too!

The Howard estate now licenses the character separately from Conan, so they don’t appear together anymore.

BY MERE COINCIDENCE:
This week I am working with Roy Thomas on his autobiography! So I just happen to have a lot of scans!!!

Roy wrote me about Red's first issue:

"The Song of Red Sonja” was very much co-plottedby Barry (Windsor Smith, Conan’s artist), who tossed in quite a few bits. Having Sonja dance at the beginning was his, for instance...as was their swim...and the idea to lay out two pages for me to script in straight prose rather than comic book dialogue. On the other hand, though a few elements of CONAN #25 (Buscema’s first) were Barry’s so that I gave him a co-plotting credit to keep his name on the book for one more issue in transition, the plot there was basically mine, “merely” embellished by John (Buscema). John at that stage was quite enthusiastic about CONAN…Barry had a poetic sense of his own and my only desire was to get a good comic--and, frankly, all the writing money. Had Barry wanted to share in that, I’d have said a firm “no” and just sent him a plot, period. He did what he did because he wanted to do it and he understood the arrangement as well as I did...nor was there ever any bickering about it."
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: SRW1000 on February 13, 2026, 06:32:08 PM: Barry, I was hoping that you would expand on my comment for the origins of this character!

It's awesome that you're writing Thomas' biography. We're losing so many of those Silver Age creators every year, so it's important to have their history written while they're still here. (John Buscema's comic artist brother Sal just passed away last month.)

I'm curious about what Roy thinks about his characters were handled on the big screen. I'm sure he's seen this one, but has he seen the new film that was released last year? How about the recent Conan stories released by Titan? I haven't seen any of them, but word of mouth has been very positive for them.

Howard created a huge number of stories that are just sitting there, ready to be adapted for the big screen. Evidently Amazon was working on a Conan series that was going to be faithful to the source material, but they ended up pulling out and turning their attention to The Rings of Power instead.

There was a movie adaptation of Solomon Kane released a decade ago (directed by the same person behind the recent Red Sonja movie). It was pretty close to the original character but didn't do well enough to warrant a sequel. It's a very interesting character that could be turned into a franchise character with the right team behind it.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: Barry on February 13, 2026, 07:27:37 PM: Roy told me something interesting about the Conan comics that he doesn’t write. He has no interest at all in reading them. This goes back to when he left the Marvel at the beginning of the 1980s.

I am helping Roy with his autobiography and when we get to the movie section, I’ll let you know what he says.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: SRW1000 on February 14, 2026, 12:27:27 PM: Quote from: Barry on February 13, 2026, 07:27:37 PM
Roy told me something interesting about the Conan comics that he doesn’t write. He has no interest at all in reading them. This goes back to when he left the Marvel at the beginning of the 1980s.

I am helping Roy with his autobiography and when we get to the movie section, I’ll let you know what he says.
That's a little surprising about Roy and the current batch of Conan comics. I would imagine he's a fan of the character, which is why he brought the property to Stan Lee. But I cand understand why he wouldn't want to compare their work to what others are doing with the character.

I remember being excited about him working on Conan the Destroyer (along with Gerry Conway) but left the theater disappointed. Maybe budget played a big part in that? One has to wonder what could have been done with the script with today's CGI and other production options.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: Barry on February 14, 2026, 01:07:54 PM: Quote from: SRW1000 on February 14, 2026, 12:27:27 PM
That's a little surprising about Roy and the current batch of Conan comics. I would imagine he's a fan of the character, which is why he brought the property to Stan Lee. But I cand understand why he wouldn't want to compare their work to what others are doing with the character.

I remember being excited about him working on Conan the Destroyer (along with Gerry Conway) but left the theater disappointed. Maybe budget played a big part in that? One has to wonder what could have been done with the script with today's CGI and other production options.
Roy was not a fan of a character and, in fact, had not read any of the Conan stories until he was assigned to write them. he was interested in the sword and sorcery genre and try to get other characters for Marvel, but was not successful. I think, at the time, Thongor was suggested.

about 1980, Roy was fed up with the new publishers and Jim shooter as editor at Marvel. Roy had always been the editor of his own work and shooter would not let that continue. so Roy left for DC. but in his contract for DC he stipulated that he would still be allowed to write Conan for Marvel. That then was a big deal but DC finally relented and agreed. however, shooter would have no part of this and would not let him continue writing Conan. so when Roy left the title, he really wasn’t interested in what Marvel was going to do with it.

years later, of course, Thomas came back and wrote Conan again.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: SRW1000 on February 14, 2026, 01:45:00 PM: Quote from: Barry on February 14, 2026, 01:07:54 PM
Roy was not a fan of a character and, in fact, had not read any of the Conan stories until he was assigned to write them. he was interested in the sword and sorcery genre and try to get other characters for Marvel, but was not successful. I think, at the time, Thongor was suggested.

about 1980, Roy was fed up with the new publishers and Jim shooter as editor at Marvel. Roy had always been the editor of his own work and shooter would not let that continue. so Roy left for DC. but in his contract for DC he stipulated that he would still be allowed to write Conan for Marvel. That then was a big deal but DC finally relented and agreed. however, shooter would have no part of this and would not let him continue writing Conan. so when Roy left the title, he really wasn’t interested in what Marvel was going to do with it.

years later, of course, Thomas came back and wrote Conan again.
Great info, as always, Barry! I had to look up Thongor, as I was not familiar with the character.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: Barry on February 23, 2026, 05:34:44 PM: Quote from: SRW1000 on February 12, 2026, 08:58:36 PM
One minor addition to the press release above, while Robert E. Howard did create a character named Red Sonya, she was a warrior from the 16th century. Comic book writer Roy Thomas took that character, including her fiery red locks, and created the Red Sonja that this film is based on, placing her in the same time period as Conan. And while Arnold appears in this film, he's playing a different character.
I asked Roy Thomas about the movie:

“Saw the "Red Sonja" movie. Liked some things about it, others not so much. Not to get credit on it as "adapting" REH's character, which was fine with me.“
Saw theSaw the "Red Sonja" movie. Liked some things about it, others not so much. Not to get credit on it as "adapting" REH's character, which was fine with me. "Red Sonja" movie. Liked some things about it, others not so much. Not to get credit on it as "adapting" REH's character, which was fine with me.
Title: Re: Red Sonja Makes Its 4K UHD World Premiere 3/24/2026
Post by: SRW1000 on February 23, 2026, 05:38:38 PM: Quote from: Barry on February 23, 2026, 05:34:44 PM
I asked Roy Thomas about the movie:

“Saw the "Red Sonja" movie. Liked some things about it, others not so much. Not to get credit on it as "adapting" REH's character, which was fine with me.“
Thanks for following up with Mr. Thomas, Barry!