Rose McGowan, who was at one time slated to make a cameo appearance as Red Sonja in the new Conan film, will instead appear as a primary member of the cast, an evil half-human/half-witch.  McGowan, who starred in Scream, Planet Terror, and the TV series Charmed, joins a Conan cast that includes Jason Mamoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Bob Sapp, Ron Perlman, Leo Howard, and Said Taghmaoui (see “From Avatar Heavy to Conan Villain”).

According to Variety, filming on Marcus Nispel’s reboot of the Conan franchise began on Monday in Bulgaria.  As for the fate of the  Red Sonja film, Robert Rodriguez told MTV that a Red Sonja movie wouldn’t begin production until rights holder Millennium Films saw how its Conan film fared at the box office.  The new Conan film is currently slated to hit screens worldwide sometime in 2011.