Robert Rodriguez (Grindhouse) will produce a new big-screen adaptation of Red Sonja, with his real-life flame Rose McGowan to play the flame-haired comic-book vixen. Douglas Aarniokoski will direct the film, expected to release in 2010, according to USA Today.

"I was surprised when Rose brought me a script of Red Sonja that she liked," Rodriguez says from his home base of Austin, where he is shooting Shorts, a family film with James Spader and Jon Cryer. "I found it very entertaining. Sonja was strong, smart, cunning - just about everything she'd have to be to survive."

The story will take its cues from the comic books as well as works by pulp novelist Robert E. Howard, father of the original Sonja (then spelled Sonya) and "Conan the Barbarian" (also undergoing a movie revival).

"Howard's goal was always, first and foremost, to spin a good yarn and to entertain," says Rodriguez, who is hoping his Red Sonja turns into a franchise. "That's our goal."

Production will begin in October.