Arnold Schwarzenegger gained fame as a movie star in1982’s Conan the Barbarian, returning in 1984’s Conan the Destroyer. And in the four decades since, he’s made many comments about coming back in a King Conan film. The original Robert E. Howard King Conan stories took place after the Cimmerian warrior took the throne. But for the first time in a long time, there seems to be real traction behind a King Conan project, and Arnie even says a celebrated director is at the helm: Mission: Impossible’s Christopher McQuarrie. It looks like Twentieth Century Studios is the studio behind it. He revealed the news at the Arnold Sports Festival, via The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s what he had to say about returning to his iconic role:
They just hired a fantastic writer/director who did Tom Cruise’s last four movies. They just hired him to write and direct King Conan. Now, what they do is that they write the part. They don’t write them like I’m forty years old, you write it to be age-appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass but it will be different.
With King Conan, it’s a great old story that Conan was forty years as King and now he gets forced out of the kingdom and there’s conflict, of course, but somehow he comes back and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic and creatures and stuff like that. And now, of course, there’s all kinds of special effects. The studio has plenty of money to make those movies really big so I’m looking forward to all of those projects.
Universal Pictures released the original Conan the Barbarian back in the ’80s. But now it appears Twentieth Century Studios has the rights, meaning Conan is part of the Disney family now. Robert E. Howard wrote five King Conan novels, and both Marvel Comics and Dark Horse published several King Conan comics.
During the same event, Arnold Schwarzenegger confirmed speaking to Dan Trachtenberg about returning as Dutch for a future Predator movie. The animated Predator: Killer of Killers definitely teased this prospect. With the success of Predator: Badlands, it seems another installment is inevitable. He even mentioned a Commando 2. Can the 78-year-old actor still tussle with swords, fight alien monsters, and get in big military shoot-outs? Hey, Harrison Ford did the same thing for a fifth Indiana Jones two years ago. What’s good for Harrison is good for Arnold.