‘Conan The Barbarian’ Is Back! Schwarzenegger And Producers Hope For A 2015 Start

The Legend of Conan, a film that has long been ballyhooed in Hollywood circles and among Conan and Schwarzenegger fans alike – looks like it will start shooting in 2015, according to Coming Soon.net.

The new Conan film has long been reported as a direct sequel to 1984’s Conan the Barbarian, and will focus on Conan in his twilight years. Robert E. Howard, Conan’s creator, actually wrote five short stories in Weird Tales magazine entitled King Conan. The stories were about Conan near the end of his life, old and alone on his throne in Aquilonia, and would provide excellent source material for the aging character and actor.

For a few generations of fans, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the definitive Conan on film, just as Christopher Reeves was the definitive Superman and Harrison Ford the definitive Indiana Jones. Having Schwarzenegger return to one of the roles that launched his mega-career is a no-brainer for both the actor and producers, it was just a question of when and how. The actor-turned-governor was busy running the third largest state in the country for a few years – and the producers were busy working on a script.

According to SuperHeroHype, Andrea Berloff was hired in 2013 to start work on the The Legend of Conan script. That script is apparently finished, and producer Fredrik Malmberg told Schwarzenegger fan-site, TheArnoldFans, they’re very happy with it, and almost finished with a polishing rewrite.

“We want to polish up the script, specifically about the characters, but we don’t think it will take long. We’ll probably have this turned in around September after the holiday and then we’ll take it to the studio and if they’re happy we can hopefully start [production] in the Spring [2015].”

When asked about whether or not a specific director has been considered for The Legend of Conan, Malmberg said no, but they’ve had directors express interest in the project.

“A lot of directors have come forth and expressed interest and that they like Conan and want to be involved when we’re at that stage but the studio said they want the script to be ready before we officially approach the directors. But we have been in touch with great old names and new fresh faces.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger being attached to The Legend of Conan seems like a done deal. In fact, Malmberg said that Arnold’s desire is for The Legend of Conan to be his followup film to the upcoming Terminator reboot. “Arnold wants that,” Malmberg said.

Photos by Movie Pilot and Pipoca e Nanquim