‘King Conan’ In The Works (Again) With Arnold Schwarzenegger And Christopher McQuarrie
by Erik Amaya
1982’s Conan the Barbarian told us that the Cimmerian’s destiny is to sit a throne while his crown sat upon a troubled brow. His chronicler, the Wizard (Mako), promised this story would also be told. And then director John Milius and screenwriter Oliver Stone went onto other projects, never completing the director’s planned trilogy that would culminate with King Conan of Aquilonia facing one last challenge. And when a sequel did emerge, Conan the Destroyer, it went in a different direction — although the Wizard, now called Akiro, once again reminded the audience of Conan’s destiny.
And now, it seems star Arnold Schwarzenegger is ready to finally tell this story. Deadline reports King Conan is in the works from 20th Century Studios, the former California governor, and Mission: Impossible‘s Christopher McQuarrie. The latter will write and direct the film with Schwarzenegger returning to play the famous barbarian. At an appearance over the weekend, he even outlined some of the film’s plot: “it’s a great old story that Conan was forty 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.”
Of course, there is little else known about the picture at this point. Over the years, Schwarzenegger also signaled his interest in finishing off a Conan trilogy and it seems it may finally come to pass. Although, serious attempts to do so occurred in both 2012 and 2017, but never materialized.
On a more personal note, it’s hard to think of a Schwarzenegger-led Conan film without composer Basil Poledouris, who wrote the music for both Barbarian and Destroyer. His “Anvil of Crom” — the theme which opens the first film — is one of the great pieces of movie music and, hopefully, McQuarrie will use it in some fashion.
We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this project as it develops.