How Pamela Anderson’s Sons Convinced Her to Reboot ‘Barb Wire’ (Exclusive)

It’s one of the roles Pamela Anderson is most famous for: the leather-clad superhero bounty hunter from the 1996 film Barb Wire.

It’s the movie she announced in 1995 at the Cannes Film Festival, wearing a leather bustier, long black gloves (and her own black leggings) — a moment that also caused such chaos that her appearance ended up causing a few yachts to collide.

Recently, Anderson’s sons, Brandon Lee, 29, and Dylan Lee, 27, (whose dad is her first husband rocker Tommy Lee) and who are now her partners in a production company, approached their mom, with a reboot idea based on the comic series.

This time they’d make it.

“My sons came to me and said, ‘Mom, we want to do a TV version of Barb Wire,’ says Anderson in this week’s PEOPLE cover story. “And I was like, ‘What? Really?’” 

“More like a dark comedy,” she explains of the project which is now in development. “So, I’m really excited to take that back.”

“It’s funny,” she notes of the film that was panned at the time and is now considered a cult classic. “I think about movies like Barbarella [the 1968 sci-fi film starring Jane Fonda] and even Mr. Freedom [a 1969 French super hero satire] — they do get panned by critics, but they’re cult favorites. So, in the end what is success? It’s still around, and people love that character too.”

“It was mostly a superficial-looking character, because it was a cartoon,” she explains. “So, I don’t think we failed at all. I think we did exactly what we intended to do, but I think with this, it’s, again, a little bit of redemption. And my children and my boys are very protective of me, and they’re going to have fun with this.”

As for her own part, she teases, “No plans at this point. But you never know. They talk me into anything. I’ll do whatever they tell me to do.”

“My kids run a lot of businesses,” says Anderson of her two sons, who are also her partners in Sonsie skincare, “and to see them blossom as entrepreneurs and businessmen has been so incredible to watch. And I get to be an actress. I dip in and out of things, and we’ve found our method together. We do have a family business. And it just makes everything more special.”

This article was written independently by PEOPLE’s editorial team and meets our editorial standards. Biolage is a paid advertising partner with PEOPLE.