Conan Heads into New Millennium

Is this film actually going to be made?

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Monday, August 13th 2007 at 5:53 PM

I really wonder who they are going to get to star in a new Conan film? Honestly, who wants to be compared to Arnold back in the day when he was at his biggest? Perhaps there is another Austrian "actor" out there itching to make it to the big time weilding a massive sword.

Either way, Millennium Films, in a seven-figure deal, has acquired the rights to make a new series of pics based on Robert E. Howard's mythical conqueror Conan the Barbarian. This comes as a bit of a surprise considering it was about a month-and-a-half ago that Variety reported the rights had gone to New Line Cinema.

The rights were extricated by Paradox Entertainment from Warner Bros. last spring and were put on the market with strict progress-to-production provisions in mid-June, which was shortly before it was said New Line grabbed 'em. Unfortunately, despite exclusive negotiating rights, New Line could not make a deal. Probably due to the seven-figure number attached to it, a number that would not be revealed by Millenium.

The other tricky part of the deal is that they hope to start production by next spring, which is a quick turnaround time as it took Warner Bros. seven years to come up with nothing despite names like Boz Yakin, Larry and Andy Wachowski, John Milius (who directed the original and wrote the script with Oliver Stone) and Robert Rodriguez surrounding the project during that time.

Guess what, since WB owns the rights to all that work Millennium is going to have to start over. Quite a risk if you ask me.

The only word on story is that this new version will be more faithful to Howard's original creation than were the Schwarzenegger films.

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