"Conan the Barbarian" TV Series in development for Netflix

[Roose Bolton]

The original Conan film is like the Spy Who Loved Me; not really close to the original source material but an amazing film by its own right.

 

[rogue trooper]

I honestly thought he was the worst part. Which surprised me because he was awesome on GoT. But I just found his performance flat and boring.

For his first major starring role, he handled himself considerably well. Having an apparently mediocre/by-the-numbers director in a rushed production can only help you so much.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah. The Milius movie is insanely perfect in pretty much every way.

Particularly accurate to the books? Hell no. The Dark Knight wasn't either, nobody cares there.

 

[TheVileOne]

The 1982 movie is probably one of the few legitimately good pure sword and sorcery films out there.

 

[MurkeNyou]

nobody cares there.

Well, you are flat wrong about that. Plenty of Conan fans care that their character is being adopted, not some bland elaboration on the concept by a hollywood screenwriter ignorant of the source material.

 

[Loki882]

The first film had fantastic visuals and cinematography, really good set design, cool and suitably gory action, an effective villain, and an all-time EPIC score/soundtrack.

So yeah a lot to live up to here even on a technical level.

 

[_Superman_]

Why?

To answer your question it's because I really didn't think the movie was that bad. It was more faithful to the books and had an alright story. The action was good as well. I just think some of the roles were miscast mainly speaking of Rachel Nichols.

 

[rogue trooper]

Yeah. The Milius movie is insanely perfect in pretty much every way.

Particularly accurate to the books? Hell no. The Dark Knight wasn't either, nobody cares there.

You don't have to be "slavish" to the source material, no, but if you're going to adapt something with a fanbase like Conan does, you should capture the essential definitive characteristics of the character. Nolan and Bale's Batman was very informed by the source material. Milius' and Arnold's Conan clearly not so much. Conan's youth in the film contradicts Robert Howard's hints in that part of the character's life. Conan, in the books, wouldn't have tolerated being a slave, as he loathes restrictions to his freedom. Arnold also came off as too silent and less educated, unlike in Howard's stories. I agree with with what Oliver Stone said about the project in that they "sold it short". Stone said it should be like James Bond. It could also have been like "a day in the life of Conan", kinda' what Dredd was, I suppose.

P.S. I think the Batman movie that is parallel to Milius's Conan would be Tim Burton's.

 

[Fincher]

I'm not a fan of the Schwarzenegger movies, and not because they altered the source material. So for me the books being different, and them wanting to get closer to the books, gives me some hope that this will be worthwhile. There was a point when I was a kid when I read and liked a couple of them, but it's not like I can go by when I was a kid.

 

[rogue trooper]

According to a poster at http://swordsofreh.proboards.com/ ,an attendee of Howard Days stated:

"Malmberg mentioned that a Conan TV show is indeed going to air on Amazon and the plan is to use real Howard stories as the basis for each episode. He did mention the fact that when Hollywood gets involved with the movie they lose too much artistic license. With a TV series it is not necessary to delve too long on origin stories, etc. In a series the characters can be fleshed out and their back stories can be revealed in pieces rather than creating a whole movie to explain. The stories can jump right into the action with a fully formed character. This is exciting news! Also plans are in the work for an El Borak series, Mark Finn suggested the actor Christian Kane to be considered for the part of El Borak. Other characters in the works are Solomon Kane, Dark Agnes, and a movie remake of "Pigeons from Hell" set in the same time period and place as the original story (1930s South). Mr Malmberg suggested that next year he would bring some of the people who work on the Conan TV series as well as some Marvel Comics people to Cross Plains. He said this year the TV series developers could not discuss the series until it comes out so they did not come this year."

 

[_Superman_]

I am really looking forward to this.

 

[marcvader]

Ooh interesting, didn't know this was a thing. Hope it's good.

Count me in as a big fan of the Milius film. Loved it.

 

[rogue trooper]

Writer Ryan Condal interview on Conan show:

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/watch-...ells-us-about-his-conan-the-barbarian-tv-show

Tara: You’ve also been working on a ton of projects outside of the TV stuff and also you’re developing another TV show and that is based on an amazing property Conan the Barbarian.

Ryan: Yes I’m very exited about that. That’s been two and a half years in the making. Right after the first season of Colony I decided that Conan would really work well as a television show. The way Robert E Howard wrote the Conan stories back in the nineteen thirties in the depression and published them serially in the pulp magazine Weird Tales. They were really the proto comic books. Those were the things that when you were growing up in the Great Depression that was what you kept crammed between your mattress to hide from your mum before comic books, which came around the decade after that. And they were illustrated, but it was more prose with one or two images to come with the stories.

These were the episodic stories of Conan and I think that the reason a lot of people struggled, other than John Millius with the first movie, to make a compelling Conan movie, is because the Howard stories never really followed the rhythm of the big epic with a third act confrontation. They were adventures in Conan’s life. And if you put the stories together chronologically it told this tableaux, this evolution of a character through time. So I went to the rights holders Pathfinder Media, who run the whole Howard library. … They were very taken with me and my passion, and we ended up putting it together and it’s now with Endeavour Content which is WME’s producing wing and I’ve written three scripts, the first three episodes, and I’ve written a series bible.

Tara: There’s so many ways that you could change the story or contemporise it. Do you want to stay really faithful to what the original stories were or are you finding that in today’s age of big epics that are being made for TV that there were some things that you would like to move around.

Ryan: I think it’s a good blend of both. Conan purists will be very pleased to see that the pilot episode, announced for the first time here, is called the Frost Giant’s daughter, which anybody who follows the saga knows was not the first story that Howard published, but it is the earliest story in Conan’s life. He’s basically just left Cimmeria and is running around as a mercenary with this viking band of warriors called the Aesir.

The Conan stories were first published out of order. The first story published was a King Conan story so it’s late in his career. I’ve put them back in order and the idea is to tell Conan’s story over the time of his life. We’ve done a particular thing structurally that I think makes it interesting. It’s hewing close to the spirit of Conan in the stories, but I’ve also introduced a more serial element to tie everything together and keep it going. I would say it’s half very, very faithful to the stories and then there’s a bunch of new stuff that we’ve done for the TV show. But it’s very faithful to the spirit of the Howard Conan character.

Tara: So you feel that TV is the right medium where you can really have a place to tell a longer story.

Ryan: Yes. You can do the level of violence and brutality and explore the themes of barbarism clashing with civilisation. I’ve described Conan as like an Apache warrior who’s left his tribal lands. He comes out into the world of civilization, sort of attracted to it, then he sees a train being built and train tracks and understands that: ‘my world, the world of my people is ending, and I either need to find a place in this new world or I'm not going to be around anymore.’ Luckily for him people value his particular set of skills in the world of civilization and they’re happy to employ him as a warrior and a thief and a mercenary. That’s Conan’s life, he’s the square peg in the round hole of civilization he doesn’t really fit but he’s able to make a living in that world.

 

[rogue trooper]

Midnight's Edge's take on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jXhq8TMSyQ

 

[rogue trooper]

Someone at Home | The Swords of Robert E. Howard suggested Joel Kinnaman(Robocop, Altered Carbon) for the title role, citing Kinnaman's resemblance to Conan in the video game Conan Exiles. I'd be very on board with this choice.

 

[Aximili86]

He wasn't personality-devoid enough in Robocop for you?

You don't want to go full-on "auuughh!" Ahnuld with this (great as that was), but probably want someone who's at least interesting to watch.

 

[TheVileOne]

No to that.

 

[rogue trooper]

He wasn't personality-devoid enough in Robocop for you?

You don't want to go full-on "auuughh!" Ahnuld with this (great as that was), but probably want someone who's at least interesting to watch.

I don't believe he was devoid of in House of Cards or in Altered Carbon.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Not Joel Kinnaman. I can't stand the guy's acting.

 

[Iceman]

Will be hard to live up to the original film but will be interesting to see what they can come up with.

 

[OutOfBoose]

'82 film is one of a kind and very much a product of it's time. The new adaptation will have much less machismo most likely.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah, 'cause the Howard books weren't hokey-macho-as-**** or anything.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Yeah, 'cause the Howard books weren't hokey-macho-as-**** or anything.

They were, but I feel '82 film pushed it even further. Who knows what they will do with it within the current political climate.

 

[Lilbaz]

'82 film is one of a kind and very much a product of it's time. The new adaptation will have much less machismo most likely.

Just as long as we don't get an emo conan.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Just as long as we don't get an emo conan.

Or females showing male warriors how to handle an axe.