OK, fans of Conan the Barbarian, producers have heard your lamentations and have taken steps to bring everyone’s favorite barbarian back to the big screen. That’s right: there are movements being made as we speak to put Arnold Schwarzenegger back in one of his foundational roles as Conan the Barbarian, in the upcoming The Legend of Conan.
According to producer Fredrik Malmberg (via /Film), the script for The Legend of Conan is in the process of being polished and the producers are now aiming for a Spring 2015 start date on production. This means that Arnold would would make this movie following his return to the Terminator franchise.
Here’s what else Malmberg had to say about what needs to happen before the film is produced:
We need to get the script where it’s right and ready to go. In the movie world, nowadays, when a movie is a go movie, it happen very quickly. It’s up to Universal to set the date for it to be released but personally, I don’t think it has to be a summer movie. I think there’s plenty of examples of big event movies being released in the winter like the Matrix movies and The Lord of the Rings. I can see this being a winter movie as well as a summer movie. This iconic role of Arnold as Conan is so big that it can be year round.
There are no directors in the offing as yet, but that will soon change if this film actually gets off the ground. The plan appears to be to bring Arnold back to his original role as Conan, though what form that will take has yet to be revealed. Perhaps he’ll be educating some young barbarians in the ways of romancing large-breasted princesses, fighting mystical beasties, and grappling with bad special effects? We can only hope.
Hopefully the producers will also take into account the fact that the original Conan films that gave Arnie his start are really not very good movies. They are camp classics, full of ridiculous dialogue and faux-mystical situations that belong in a 1980s comic book. Continuing to keep tongue firmly in cheek would be the best way to go about this one, methinks.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens next with The Legend of Conan, but as always we’ll keep an eye out for news. For now, let’s assume that the film will meet its Spring 2015 start date, and that we can expect it sometime in 2016. I guess that’s something to look forward to.