Two years before The Terminator catapulted him to stardom and gave him his first of many trademark catchphrases, Arnold Schwarzenegger got his first big break in Hollywood when he headlined 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. Schwarzenegger had another go-round in 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, but a planned third installment ultimately never happened. Now that he’s revived his acting career, Schwarzenegger has expressed interest in revisiting Robert E. Howard’s most famous character in a new film. However, while speaking with The Arnold Fans (via ComicBook.com), he explained that conflicts with the current rights-holders prevent this from happening.
“When it comes to the movie, the sad stuff about all of this is when there’s an estate like this…The Robert E. Howard estate…when someone buys these rights, those people now own the rights and they have their own vision of what they want to do and the guy that has the rights is some young guy and he’s trying to figure out how to get his way through Hollywood and this is not easy to do,” said Schwarzenegger.
“So there are people that say to him, ‘Why don’t you start with a TV series?’ and then he negotiates for a TV series and that falls apart,” related Schwarzenegger. “And then he goes maybe to Netflix and that falls apart. Then he decides to make a movie maybe.”
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Lionsgate previously attempted a Conan the Barbarian reboot in 2011 starring Jason Momoa in the title role. Unfortunately, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews and bombed at the box office. Despite this misfire, Schwarzenegger asserted his belief that continuing the original series is the right course of action.
“In the meantime, we have been trying to convince him for years now that the way to go is to come back and hire a really great director and to do another Conan movie and have me play King Conan, when Conan is like 70 years old and he’s disgusted by sitting on the throne and being the king and then something happens after that,” continued Schwarzenegger. “It’s really not that far from creating a finished script. The only one who really has to pull the trigger there is the people who own the Conan rights to do a movie. Let’s go to Netflix or whoever it is, let’s hire a director who’s very creative and can elevate the project to make it a winning project.”
Would you be open to Schwarzenegger reprising his role as Conan in a new film? Tell us what you think in the comment section below!
