Monday 30 January 2012

Preview Post - BARB WIRE

Our look at the post-apocalyptic films of the mid-1990s comes to a close as we turn our attention to the 1996 cult film Barb Wire!


Created by a group of five individuals at Dark Horse Comics (always a good sign), including Chris Warner and Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson, Barb Wire is the tale of Barbara Kopetski, a bar owner who, in order to pay for said bar, operates as a bounty hunter. Based in Steel Harbor, Barbara targets include metahumans who possess a wide range of superpowers. Acting as Q to Barbara’s Bond is her younger brother Charlie, a blind mathematical genius who rigs her up with the technology she needs for her jobs.


First debuting in Steel Harbor Week 1: Barb Wire, the character would go on to appear in a short lived regular series of nine issues between 1994-1995, and was briefly resurrected in 1998 for a mini-series. Apparently, given this “success”, a film adaptation was considered viable and in 1996, the film Barb Wire was unleashed upon the public, ultimately bombing at the box office and receiving six Golden Raspberry Award nominations. Of those six, the film won “Worst New Star” for lead actress Pamela Anderson.

The film is directed by David Hogan, who outside of directing a few music videos (and being the second unit director on Batman Forever), would only go on to direct one other film, the 1997 action film Most Wanted:



The screenplay for the film is written by Chuck Pfarrer and Ilene Chaiken. Pfarrer’s credits include various genre films throughout the 1990s, including work on a little film known as Darkman:


Chaiken’s credits by contrast include creating, writing, producing and directing the television program The L Word, which ran between 2004 and 2009:


However, while the film is based on the comic, the film’s plot and story structure are taken from another source which is not credited at all:



Sadly, we are not talking about that film this week. But we will make do as we try and survive Barb Wire!

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