Rose McGowan, Robert Rodriguez and director Douglas Aarniokoski showcased Red Sonja at Comic-Con with an early teaser poster and some artwork for the movie which is heading for a 2009 release.

You may recall this is the second attempt at a Rodriguez/McGowan team-up post-Grindhouse, as Universal dumped the Barbarella remake when they were unsure of the box office talents of McGowan.

The early poster is below, pretty ironically the THIRD POSTER this week to have a vixen lead licking blood in a sultry fashion…

And the second has a feeling of 300 about it…

Things /Film and AICN learned from the Con about Red Sonja...

Rodriguez can’t direct the movie because of a prior contractual agreement he had with the Weinsteins, for his next movie to be for them. Which is why he chose his frequent first assistant director Douglas Aarniokoski for the gig, though Rodriguez will shoot many of the scenes and “conveniently” take a producer’s credit.

So basically, he is co-directing but legally he won’t be directing - to get over the DGA issue.

Rodriguez has a deep love for the source material.

They are currently scouting locations for where to shoot the movie.

McGowan will start her sword training for the role this week. A kinetic fighting style will be used (i.e. the opening chase scene of Casino Royale) for much of the film. She will be taught her swordwomanship from a guy who did a similar job on The Matrix and is regarded as being the best in the business.

Green screen and live action will be blended, i.e. Sin City and 300. I don’t think anybody is surprised by that one.

The film will be very dark and will be an origin story for the character. Rodriguez described it as a “tale of vengeance”.

Rodriguez likes the idea of doing a Conan companion piece somewhere down the road, but that’s likely to be difficult with Millenium Pictures pushing ahead with a different idea soon.