Between the time when Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for California governor and the rise of the very words you’re reading right now, there was an age undreamed of. Plenty of potential sequels to “The Governator’s” most beloved classics seemed to fall by the wayside.
While the Austrian multihyphenate eventually did come back to the Terminator franchise, there have been three sagas that have sat untouched on his troubled brow – Conan the Barbarian being one of them. At least, that was until today. Let me tell you this tale of high adventure, and potentially scalable budgets, that could be bringing back some long awaited dream projects.
King Conan Lives, And With A Pretty Awesome Writer/Director Attached
Sitting down in an interview at the recent Arnold Sports Festival (via YouTube), the OG Conan proclaimed that he will be ruling once more. The project, dubbed King Conan, has been set up at 20th Century Studios; which is thanks to some good old rights wrangling seeing the property departing Universal.
Per confirmation from THR, Christopher McQuarrie is set to write/direct the picture. That kind of explains why Tom Cruise’s rumored Mission: Impossible 9 development hasn’t mentioned Mr. McQ in its speculation. As for King Conan’s concept, here’s how Arnold Schwarzenegger laid it all out:
Now, what they do is that they write the part. They don’t write them like I’m 40 years old. You write it to be age appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass but it will be different. With ‘King Conan,’ it’s a great old story that Conan [reigned for] 40 years as king and now he gets forced out of the kingdom and there’s conflict, of course. But somehow he comes back, and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic and creatures and stuff like that. And now, of course, there’s all kinds of special effects. The studio has plenty of money to make those movies really big so I’m looking forward to all of those projects.
While not confirmed, I’d be willing to bet that King Conan will still skip over 1984’s universally panned sequel Conan the Destroyer. Seeing as the only action Robert E Howard’s hero of royal pulp fiction has gotten since then is that 2011 reboot with Jason Momoa, that’s easy enough. That being said, those relatively smooth seas aren’t guaranteed for one of the other projects now on the books – which makes Conan’s move to 20th Century Studios make a lot more sense.
Dan Trachtenberg And Arnold Schwarzenegger Developing A Predator Sequel Is Solid Gold
I apologize to anyone who’s been reading the King Conan news, waiting for me to confirm whether or not there was an update on the Predator franchise. Thanks to these remarks from the Total Recall lead, we know that tale will be told:
They did an additional ‘Predator’ and the director [Dan Trachtenberg] has been doing a great job of that. Now, he wants me to be in the next ‘Predator.’ We’ve talked about it. As a matter of fact, Fox Studios has kind of rediscovered Arnold. They’ve come to me and said, ‘We want you to do “Predator,” we just got a script for you to do “Commando 2.”
Well there you have it! Dan Trachtenberg’s vague comments about “figuring out Predator movie stuff” (reported via Den of Geek) doesn’t appear to be a polite way of placating fans. Finally, the teasing and dancing around Dutch’s fate can now end – and that sweet Predator: Killer of Killers easter egg can now pay off! (The less said about the chaotic decision on The Predator’s ending, the better.)
Three Arnold Schwarzenegger classics are now in the works, with King Conan sounding like it’s the furthest along. We will all have to be patient and wait to hear further information on what’s to come. But you can bet that you won’t have to get to ‘ze choppa to learn the latest and greatest pop culture news. All you need to do is keep a browser tab tuned to the THS Movie News archives! Now go let of some steam!
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