Lionsgate Still Pushing a 'Conan' Film

Scarlett Johansson's 'Amazon' also still in the conversation

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 11:12 PM

I think the first time I wrote about a new Conan the Barbarian film was back in June of 2006 when Boaz Yakin was taking a stab at the script. Since that time I have written numerous articles about the return of the warrior to the big screen and Lionsgate isn't stopping yet.

THR reports Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain are the latest scribes to take a stab at the screenplay based on Robert E. Howard's original pulp stories from the 1930s as opposed to the bloodier pic resulting from an Oliver Stone script in 1982 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The goal, of course, is to turn it into a franchise and it sounds like Lionsgate is looking at the possibility very seriously and don't want to screw up the first attempt. The story may not be much at this point, but with all the writers that have attempted to bring this story to the bigscreen shows just how serious Lionsgate seems to be about getting it right.

"Fans expect (these types of movies) to be more true to the source material," CEO and president of Paradox Entertainment Fredrik Malmberg said. "There's no reason there couldn't be a Conan movie every two years. He's almost like Batman: He's a dark hero. He's a hard hero. He has to be badass, but we also have to like him."

The THR article also makes reference to the Scarlett Johansson picture called Amazon, which was first announced way back in 2005. In the film Johansson would play a gladiatrix from 200 B.C. who exacts vengeance on an army that destroyed her homeland. Blackman and McCain wrote that script as well.