How French comics invased in movies. Part 1 — Stupid but Sexy

This post is one of the series I will dedicate to Franco-Belgian movies based on comics. Prepare to deploy! As new Avengers movie passed by, someone rates the film with a rating of Stan Lee/10, someone is just angry or upset with it. The movie industry has reliably taught the masses to perceive comics as a pop culture. Nobody thinks it is geeks-only thing. In recent years it became a reality that only cavemen seem to not know where Superman came from and how to defeat him (not speaking of other useless things from comics world). The other category of equally useless knowledge in the world of useless information are the movies based on Franco–Belgian comics. 

In 1968, on the screens of Europe and the United States came out of the Franco–Italian movie directed by Roger Vadim — “Barbarella” which was based on the eponymous comic book of the Frenchman Jean–Claude Forest. The first volumes of it were published from 1962 to 1964. This is a B-Movie which is rather frivolous, stands on the verge of decency (I remind you this is late 60s) and with Jane Fonda in the title role. It has screaming elements of a trash-movie (which make it sweet and naive): cardboard scenery, rockets made of papier–mâché, form-fitting suits and all the sex behind the scenes. And Jane Fonda, and grotesque costumes. And half-naked Jane Fonda. A little naive and innocent Jane Fonda.

With a budget of 9 million dollars (according to other sources only 4 mil of it were spent) in box-office movie recieved only $ 2.5 million, according to Wikipedia. You couldn't call this movie a blockbuster, but the band Duran Duran for example took the name of one of the characters in the film, scientist Durand Durand. Prince, Kylie Minogue, Jean Paul Gaultier also took inspiration for some of their works from this movie.

Costumes for Barbarella were created by Paco Rabanne. Who was at that time inspired by the women's rights movement. Metal, plastic, transparent rubber sheet, the “mail” elements of the costume — designer was inspired by the medieval knight theme but made it more feminine, sexy and fantastic. High boots knee high — a clear nod to the traditional image of Musketeers as well as light short coat. There is not a single scene where Barbarella would wear a dress.

The comic book itself represents the work imbued with the spirit of the sexual revolution, which began in the sixties. A separate edition of this comic caused a bit of a scandal, despite the fact that earlier, from 20-s to 60-s there were pornographic comics published in the format of a pocket book in US . A series of “Tijuana Bibles” (Tijuana bible) was the obscene parody short comic, involving, for example, the characters of the cartoon series Popeye. They were published illegally, authors and artists naturally tried to remain anonymous, and police scoured the trail of publishers and conducted several successful arrests in various cities in the United States.

Barbarella generally prefers to solve problems by the means of peace not war. Specifically the "Barbarella" opened a new genre: the struggle for sexual freedom of women through the image of the emancipated main character. In 1966  the comic book Adventure Jodelle” was published in 1967 — the Saga of XAM, fantasy about a girl with blue skin, in 1981 — “Scarlet dreams”, a collection of sci–fi stories. These comics were the new wave in comics of the time.

In 1968, paramount had announced the possible release of the second part of the movie called “Barbarella goes down”. But in the mid-seventies, this intention was abandoned. In 1990 there were plans about the sequel with the script of the Dino de Laurent, and Bridget Fonda in the lead role. Still no success.

A couple of times the film was planned to be reshoot: in 2007, Robert Rodriguez was announced as the Director of the remake, Universal Studios did not approve a higher budget surveys ($ 82 million instead of the original $ 60 mil) and its leading women role nomination (Rose McGowan), Rodriguez seemed to have found an alternative Studio, but in 2009 he still refused to shoot the movie. In 2010 the news said that Director on the project is Robert Luketich, but since that time no more news.