6. Xena: Warrior Princess
During the 1990s there was a far greater quantity of TV built around strong female stars. Xena: Warrior Princess, for all its slightly low budget cheesiness, still has a place in the hearts of many fans of both fantasy stories and good TV roles for women. Coming from the same style of sword and sorcery fantasy as Red Sonja, only with a little more of a knowing tone of '90s postmodernism, Xena was produced by director Sam Raimi who has since turned into a major Hollywood player after the huge financial returns of the Spider-man trilogy and Oz the Great and Powerful. Given the show's big fanbase, it is inevitable that since the series ended in 2001 there have been rumours and campaigns for a feature length Xena film.
How likely is it? A film follow-up was fairly heavily suggested in the immediate aftermath of the series, with a writer becoming attached in 2003, but nothing really came of it. Over the last couple of years, though, a concerted campaign for a Xena movie saw Universal Pictures bombarded with requests and support from fans for a film with the original cast. Earlier this year, original star Lucy Lawless said that she'd been contacted by someone interested in "reinvigorating the Xena brand," which shows that there has been some definite progress towards a movie, but writer-director Rob Tapert has previously dismissed such rumours as: "something that just won't happen." Tapert suggested that a movie would be more likely ten or twenty years down the line with a new cast in the style of Charlie's Angels. A Xena movie is likely at some point, then, but not for a few years.
Who should star? Most fans would probably still like Lawless herself to return, but she herself has said that it is more likely to happen with a new, younger cast: "By the time somebody realises it's a completely wasted franchise and they should reinvigorate it, I'm too old to play her." If Xena is recast, then Bridget Regan is an actress whose name is often put forward by fans for various action girl parts. Regan made her name in Legend of the Seeker, another Sam Raimi produced TV fantasy adventure, so has a similar enough background to fit the part of Xena pretty well.