Arnold Schwarzenegger will rule again in King Conan, a long-awaited sequel to the blockbuster Conan The Barbarian franchise that made him a star. Christopher McQuarrie writes and directs, and Schwarzenegger confirms filming should start later this year.
Conan The Barbarian By The Numbers
Conan The Barbarian scored box office gold when it hit theaters in 1982. Fantasy films were flying high at the time, but while comparable releases like The Sword and the Sorcerer and The Beastmaster sported budgets of $4 million and $9 million, respectively, Conan enjoyed a whopping $20 million budget and major studio distribution plus marketing.
The film has a grandeur and scale, a vision and sense of a world that existed long before we showed up to witness it, that few other fantasy releases of the era managed to match – Dragonslayer, Time Bandits, Clash of the Titans, and of course the masterpiece Excalibur being among them. Audiences were thrilled and Conan became a $70+ million global hit.
A follow up was quickly greenlit, filmed, and released in 1984 Conan The Destroyer simply lacked the magic and ambition of the original, feeling light and camp instead of serious and epic. The result was a disappointment that ended the franchise, for many reasons but not least of which was the choice to try to appeal to a broader family audience with a PG approach instead of the adult-oriented R-rated vision of the first film. This decision unfortunately led to more jokes and tongue planted firmly in cheek (akin to the slapstick reshooting of Superman II by Richard Lester for a more child-appealing and less ambitious approach than Richard Donner’s own Superman II footage before he was fired from the project).
Richard Fleischer’s previous work in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Soylent Green certainly prove he was capable of delivering the goods, but Conan The Destroyer had a reduced budget and the noted hamstringing demands from producers to cut the action, violence, and sex and adult themes, and only half the time to make it.
Those who love the first film, myself included, largely ignore the sequel. It appears likely the upcoming sequel King Conan will be a direct sequel to the original film and ignore Destroyer entirely (although I’d be lying if I said part of me wouldn’t applaud an effort to retcon and reform the reputation of Destroyer with cameos by Grace Jones and Olivia D’Abo).
Conan’s And Schwarzenegger’s Legacy
Conan The Barbarian is among the seminal films of my own childhood, and stands as an iconic entry in the particular genre tastes instilled in me by older brothers whose collection of Conan novels (alongside Doc Savage and Tarzan paperbacks, and stacks of comic books and magazines including Batman, Heavy Metal, and Savage Sword of Conan). Likewise, I come from a family of artists and Frank Frazetta was a huge inspiration and favorite in our household, and his book cover artwork of Conan added to the familial love of the character and film.
A minor obsession for me as a kid was the fact I noticed the ending of Conan The Barbarian was the same as the ending of Apocalypse Now, and both films were written/cowritten by John Millius.
We’ve waited for years for a proper Conan sequel starring Schwarzenegger, and while I am a fan of Jason Momoa’s incarnation in 2011’s attempted reboot Conan The Barbarian from director Marcus Nispel (the film plays a lot like the Savage Sword of Conan pulp comics), I have never stopped hoping Schwarzenegger would return to the role and give us the final chapter promised by the teasers at the end of his earlier Conan films.
This was in fact a big reason I hoped Warner Bros’ previous DCEU and current DCU would cast Schwarzenegger as Darkseid in their DC Comics superhero shared cinematic world was like a dark-universe consolation prize for not getting a King Conan movie. Which isn’t to say he’s not still the best casting choice for Darkseid, in case James Gunn is listening, as I’m convinced a Darkseid inspired by Richard III and a bit of Hamlet and Lear could be a nice way to approach the character, and getting Schwarzenegger to bring a Wagnerian mythical presence to such a characterization would be a match made in cosmic New Gods cinematic heaven.
Full disclosure, I wrote for portions of Taschen’s collector’s edition tabletop book ARNOLD, a two-volume set of portraits by photographers including Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol, plus personal photos and interviews of the star about his life and career. And as a lifelong fan, I was delighted and deeply moved by his kindness during a health emergency in my family few years back at a particularly difficult time. So it’s impossible for me to really be unbiased about Schwarzenegger. I’ve been a fan of his films since Conan The Barbarian, reviewed his films regularly and positively, and wrote about his legacy being ahead of his time years ago.
But I’d also argue that my bias is well-earned and well-deserved. There’s a reason King Conan has been so anticipated, and why McQuarrie is boarding the project after this phenomenal run on the blockbuster Mission: Impossible franchise. Schwarzenegger’s films have grossed more than $5 billion worldwide, and while some would point to his most recent feature releases as underperforming or flopping, I’d say the indie films he made such as Maggie and Aftermath provided him opportunities to branch out into performances and genres he otherwise hasn’t appeared in, and most of his larger projects including Expendables sequels and even underperforming Terminator sequels (notably the underappreciated Genesis) made enough money to demonstrate audience interest and that Schwarzenegger’s name is still a draw.
The biggest factor, however, is that more recent films usually fail to capture what made Schwarzenegger’s other films such hits, and how they remained ahead of their time compared to other genre fare in the 1980s and 1990s. This is why I argued so strenuously that he was a perfect fit for Cable in the Deadpool movies, for example, because understanding the star and his intuition for not merely action but also comedy and irreverence, for storytelling that deconstructs precisely the larger-than-life characters he creates.
Think about how Terminator 2 immediately took his 1980s action hero-turned-monster framing and took it apart to examine the underlying themes and meaning, and then put it back together again in a new form existing entirely as a counterpoint to the previous iteration of the character. The Last Action Hero during the height of Schwarzenegger’s popularity was an extremely self-aware and self-depreciating deconstruction that, as noted already, was doing what Deadpool does before anyone knew how to react to it.
It was only when the studios and filmmakers started bringing him material that no longer tested boundaries or provided him opportunities to try to stay ahead of the curve that things changed, and even then I will always argue that his early 2000s films had some great stuff – The 6th Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines are both much better than their reputations – while his time as California governor took him out of the box office right when everything was shifting into the new modern paradigm. When he returned, superhero cinema was dominant and “geek culture” had officially become simply our “culture.”
Among Schwarzenegger’s roles that are ripe for revival in the new cinematic landscape, a return to Conan’s sword and sorcery combined with the power of nostalgia (all those writers and directors and producers who grew up on this stuff came of age, and their nostalgia is doing a lot of navigating) and McQuarrie’s tremendous action-dramatic filmmaking chops, feels like the best course. I’d also say the DCU or Marvel route is still also a top box to check, and I’d put my money on DCU for a lot of reasons (including James Gunn’s love of the eras and genres and nostalgia and sensibilities that are manifested in Schwarzenegger and his career), if I can bang that drum one more time here.
If King Conan gets into production this year, we should hear casting news and early hints of story influences soon. And of course, a first look at Arnold Schwarzenegger as our favorite barbarian, sitting on that throne like the last time we saw him…
