In completely unexpected news, Deadline is reporting that Universal Pictures have signed a deal to make a new Conan the Barbarian movie — with the most unexpected part being that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be returning to the role that made him famous in 1982. Titled The Legend of Conan, Universal is hoping to have the film out in summer 2014.
Naturally Arnold will be playing a much-older King Conan (since he no longer resembles the man to our left), and producer Fredrik Malmberg points that out in his comments on the film:
The original ended with Arnold on the throne as a seasoned warrior, and this is the take of the film we will make. It’s that Nordic Viking mythic guy who has played the role of king, warrior, soldier and mercenary, and who has bedded more women than anyone, nearing the last cycle of his life. He knows he’ll be going to Valhalla, and wants to go out with a good battle.
Co-producer Chris Morgan adds:
After the original seminal movie, all that came after looked silly to me. Robert E. Howard’s mythology and some great philosophy from Nietzsche to Atilla the Hun was layered in the original film. People say, he didn’t speak for the first 20 minutes of the film, but that was calculated in depicting this man who takes control of life with his own hand. This movie picks up Conan where Arnold is now in his life, and we will be able to use the fact that he has aged in this story. I love the property of Conan so much that I wouldn’t touch it unless we came up with something worthy. We think this is a worthy successor to the original film. Think of this as Conan’s Unforgiven.
As for the big man himself, Schwarzenegger says:
I always loved the Conan character and I’m honored to be asked to step into the role once again. I can’t wait to work with Universal and the great team of Fredrik Malmberg and Chris Morgan to develop the next step of this truly epic story.
This film will likely ignore the 2011 reboot. Jason Momoa made a great Conan, and I even thought that it was a very solid action film (you can check out my review here!) However, audiences were obviously not interested, as the film bombed big-time. But as someone who is loving the current revival of 80s action heroes like Schwarzenegger, I’m definitely looking forward to a Conan-meets-Unforgiven type of movie as Arnold wraps up his career.
Now I only have two requests: John Milius, who directed and co-wrote the original, should be involved, and Schwarzenegger needs to do a commentary track when this hits Blu-ray because his commentary on 1982’s Conan the Barbarian is unintentionally hysterical.
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