Pamela Anderson recently proved herself to be a star turn in Liam Neeson’s The Naked Gun, but it looks like she is now set to resurrect one of her panned 90s roles – but this time as a producer rather than star. It seems that the former Baywatch star is about to head back to Steel Harbor to bring a new iteration of leather-clad, busty, cult comic book character Barbara “Barb Wire” Kopetski to the small screen in a new TV series.
According to Deadline, Anderson will be reviving Barb Wire via And-Her-Sons Productions company, which the actress recently launched with – you guessed it – her sons Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee. The new project will be in partnership with Universal and Dark Horse Entertainment.
While there have been plenty of legacy sequels hitting cinemas and streaming platforms in the last several years, fans shouldn’t expect his to be one of them. Anderson will not be filling out the tight leathers of Barb this time around, and the project will have a “different feel” than her panned movie outing as the kick-ass bounty hunter. While there are very few details known about what the project will look like, a brutal, sexy, R-rated comic book project would fit in very well with the success of shows like Peacemaker, and there couldn’t be a better time to have Barb Wire tearing up the screen.
Who is Barb Wire?
For those who have not caught Anderson’s 1996 movie or the comic books it was based on, Barbara “Barb Wire” Kopetski is a sleek and successful nightclub owner in the last “free city” in a fascist vision of a dystopian America, who doubles at night as a mercenary-for-hire in Steel Harbor. The movie’s synopsis reads:
“When scientist Cora Devonshire (Victoria Rowell) wanders into Barb’s establishment, she gets roped into a top-secret government plot involving biological weapons. Soon Barb is reunited with her old flame Axel Hood (Temuera Morrison), who is now Cora’s husband and a guerrilla fighter, resulting in plenty of tense action.”
The original comics were created by Chris Warner for Dark Horse Comics in the early ’90s, and while it has been a few years since Barb Wire appeared in any new comic runs, the timing of Anderson’s new project coincides with a newly announced Barb Wire Compendium being on the way in February 2026.
The 1996 movie starring Anderson is one that could have easily slipped under the radar for modern audiences, as the film was a $3.8 million box office flop on its release, but found a cult following later on home video. In the years since, the film’s reputation – and a set of dismal Rotten Tomatoes scores (28% critics, 15% audience) – has helped it mostly fade into obscurity.
When it was released, Barb Wire was labeled by many as an attempt to cash in on Anderson’s sex symbol status, and one look at her busty blonde appearance in marketing for the film did not really debunk that idea. Who will take on the role of Barb in the new series is not yet known, but several comments have already made it known that Sydney Sweeney was born for the role. Can’t imagine why they would think that.
- Release Date
-
May 2, 1996
- Runtime
-
98 minutes
- Director
-
David Hogan
- Writers
-
Chuck Pfarrer
- Producers
-
Brad Wyman, Mike Richardson, Peter Heller
