
CONAN THE BARBARIAN To Get The GAME OF THRONES Treatment For Amazon!
The 80s were filled with fantasy movies and awesome music that gets played throughout films today. I won’t go down the list of film favorites from the era but one that is on that list is getting a facelift for the third time and will be taking a different direction. Deadline is reporting that the sorcerer-killing savage played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian is making another return in the form of an Amazon Prime TV series.
In 1982 when the first Conan hit theaters it was a hit, grossing about $116 million in adjusted gross. Those were not box office smashing numbers but a well received appreciation which was what helped brought on a second film, still starring The Arnold. Conan would leave the big screen for some time and return in 2011 with Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) taking on character in a Conan the Barbarian that was not so lucky in theaters. It only raked in roughly $29 million in the domestic box office and did not see the same fandom in video sales. The 1982 version would continue to be a hit with viewers watching on their own televisions giving rise to the idea to bring Conan back to the small screen as a series.
The live action series of the character based on the book series by Robert E. Howard will tell the story of Conan as a wanderer in “the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage.” A direction that was the original feel of the story written by Howard. This new group though will bring possibly an even more brutal touch to the character in the series as the creative team is comprised of Ryan Condal of Colony, Warren Littlefield of The Handmaid’s Tale, and Miguel Sapochnik of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones.
There is no news of when it will be released but with the team mentioned and and the direction they hope to go in this production of the classic barbarian character, we may get to see one of the darkest and truest versions of Conan the Barbarian yet.
The bad news in all this is that it this is likely the death knell for Arnold’s return to Conan. There had long been talk of him returning to the throne, older and wiser. Alas, with this production now on the way, that’s probably the end of that.
SOURCE: Deadline
Let’s hope they nail it. I love the Conan stories and comics.