Step aside Mr. Momoa, the king has returned. On the wings of his recent escapades Arnie continues with efforts to get back to the top, this time with the sequel to the original Conan movies that were shot in the eighties (1982 and 1984). Busy with the filming another sequel, Terminator 5 (fuck me), immediately after that’s finished he will dust of the old sword and get back at the throne. Not much is known about this movie, but let me try to connect the dots.
2016, damn that sounds so far and almost futuristic, but I think that because the Terminator is set for 2015 release, it’s reasonable to think that Conan will be out in 2016, perhaps even 2017 if there are hiccups with the production (not likely, but who knows). After not so good reboot with the Conan the Barbarian [2011] starring Jason Momoa as Conan, and the return of the king (of action movies) the circumstances allowed the start of another reboot of the franchise. The 2011 version took a look at the eighties movies, wrote down the elements they thought would appeal to the younger generations and then created a neat fantasy movie. It lacked that visceral and raw aspect that actually made the movie come to life and this left an opening for a second reboot.
Universal studios hired Andrea Berloff known for World Trade Center [2006], to write the script and the rest of the crew is not known at this time. The man we have to thank for this reboot is Chris Morgan (Fast & Furious, Cellular), who’s producing the movie and actually convinced the studio that they should go back to that violent and bloody vibe with aged Arnie in the lead. So we can expect, sort of, return to the roots of Conan, as we find him at the throne, ready, willing and able to dispatch his enemies to death.
One final thing: The director of Terminator 5, Alan Taylor, who directed a lot of good series like Homicide: Life on The Street (7 episodes), Rome (2), The Sopranos (9), Mad Men (4) and the movie Thor: The Dark World [2013] has a really nice resume. But the most important thing is that recently he was the director for six episodes of Game of Thrones, making him a good candidate for the director of The Legend Of Conan. Couple that with the fact that he’s already working on Terminator with Arnie I see no reason why they shouldn’t continue their cooperation on the return of the king…