Thanks to Zach Davisson for the heads-up on the cover art contest:

Conan the Barbarian returns in the most beloved tale of his career next month when Conan the Barbarian #1 by Brian Wood and art by Becky Cloonan hits shelves, and we want you, with a sword in hand–or pencil or paintbrush–to draw, paint, or collage a Conan Cover to rival all Covers. Stoke up the savage fire, Amp up the action shot and bring Conan to life in your own hand.  

We want you to Create a Conan cover like we’ve never seen before.  Think hard, get some inspiration and bring Conan to life! Send us your entry at Contests [at] darkhorse [dot] com. 

If your Conan Cover is the strongest, manliest, sexiest, and most savage piece we recieve we will print your art in the back of an upcoming issue of Conan the Barbarian. If you think you’ve got what it takes to bring Conan to life, show us. Never bare a weapon unless you intend to use it. Ladies and Gentleman, show us what you’ve got.

All Entries are due upon the Jan 31st, 11:59pm Deadline. We’ll choose a winner on Feb. 1st, 2012 and announce it on this blog post within several days after. And look for an Album on our Facebook Page of all entries. 

Winner will receive a complimentary copy the issue with their artwork as well as The Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 9 TPB, Conan vol 10: Iron Shadows in the Moon TPB , Conan Vol. 9 Free Companions TPB and a Conan Limited Edition Action Figure.

(Don’t forget to read the fine print!)

Cromrades, this could be an excellent opportunity to show your stuff. But if you’ll endulge me…

There’s a lot of great Conan art out there, no question. Be it the inimitable Frazetta or a youngster on DeviantArt, you can find some true quality artwork out there. However, as with any subject, there tends to be a great repitition of themes. Conan will usually be either fighting, or posing contemplatively; he will be clad in a fur loincloth, Greco-Romanesque regalia, or some Heavy Metal-style partial armour. Women will usually be clutching – or be clutched by – Conan, lounging around seductively, or cowering in fright; they will almost always be near-nude. Any other figures will either be half-naked savages in a chaotic throng, soldiers of the Ancient World, or a horde of beast-men. The monster, of course, will be apish, serpentine, cthulhoid or draconian, and Conan will always face it heroically.

Wouldn’t it be nice to try something different? Conan is a man of gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, a man who’s experienced stark terror: let’s see those emotions in action. Dress him in something different – eastern hillman garb, desert nomad attire, mercenary armour, pirate regalia. Depict a female who isn’t fawning or lounging or half-naked. Draw something other than an action scene. Maybe even pick a scene directly from the stories. There was more to the Conan stories than the action, sex and violence, and it would be awesome to see more of that in evidence.

Or just do another picture of Conan with a girl and a monster, they seem to go down well. If you want to stick to action scenes – it’s what Howard did best, after all – then give it all you have.

I haven’t posted much on the blog due to my moratorium, but I feel that this news is important to anyone who calls themselves a Conan fan. The news has come that Glenn Lord has died.

If you know who Glenn Lord is, then you know no amount of words can really convey how important he was to Robert E. Howard’s legacy. If you don’t know who Glenn Lord is, then his Wikipedia page (which was composed by Howard scholar Lee Breakiron) will show an inkling of just how vast his influence and impact was:

A Korean vet and a paper warehouse manager by trade, he discovered Howard through Skull-Face and Others (1946) around 1951. He sought out earlier publications with REH’s work, most notably the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. Starting in 1956, he scoured the country for all REH stories, poems, and letters. Over the course of his life he has amassed the world’s largest collection of such publications and original manuscripts (actually typescripts).

Lord became literary agent for the Howard heirs around March, 1965, and served as such for 28 and a half years. In 1965, he tracked down the contents of Robert E. Howard’s famous storage trunk; the contents of which were then owned by pulp writer and Howard friend E. Hoffmann “Ed” Price. The contents consisted of tens of thousands of pages typed by Howard, including hundreds of unpublished stories, poems, and fragments. Using the contents of the trunk as well as his vast collection of previously published REH materials, Lord provided the source text for almost every published Howard work appearing in books, magazines, or chapbooks from 1965 through 1997, including collections of REH letters. Lord also provided introductions, afterwords, or commentary for dozens of REH books.

Tirelessly promoting Howard’s stories, Lord secured their publication in any promising venue, leading directly to the Howard Boom of the 1970s. This included books by Ace, Arkham House, Avon, Baen, Ballantine, Bantam, Barnes & Noble Books, Baronet, Berkley, Beagle, Belmont, Bonanza, Carroll & Graff, Centaur, Century-Hutchinson, Chelsea House, Chaosium, DAW, Dell, Delta, Dodd-Mead, Dorset, Doubleday, Fawcett Gold Medal, FAX, Fedogan & Bremer, Fictioneer, Five Star, Gollancz, Grafton, Gramercy, Donald M. Grant, Grossett & Dunlap, Harper Collins, Jove, Kaye & Ward, Lancer, Leisure, MacFadden, Manor, Mayflower, Meys, Morning Star Press, New English Library, Neville Spearman, Orbit, Oxford University Press, Pan, Panther, Prentice-Hall, Putnam, Pyramid, REH Foundation Press, Robinson, Ryerson, Science Fiction Book Club, Sidgwick & Jackson, Signet, Sphere, Taplinger, TOR, Tower, Underwood-Miller, University of Nebraska Press, Walker & Co., Warner Books, WH Allen, Xanadu and Zebra; periodicals such as Amazing Science Fiction Stories, Amazing Stories, Ariel, Chacal, Coven 13/Witchcraft & Sorcery, Different Worlds, Fantastic Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories/Fantastic Stories of Imagination, Fantasy Book, Fantasy Commentator, Fantasy Crossroads, Fantasy Crosswinds, Fantasy Tales, The Haunt of Horror, Heavy Metal, Lost Fantasies, Magazine of Horror, Pulp Review, The Riverside Quarterly, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Spaceway Science Fiction, Startling Mystery Stories, Sword and Sorcery, Trumpet, Weird Tales, Weirdbook, The West, White Wolf Magazine, Worlds of Fantasy, Xenophile, and Zane Grey Western Magazine; and several series of Marvel comic books and magazines. In many cases, he was also the uncredited editor of the published version of the REH works. And this is not counting the literally hundreds of books and magazines in non-English languages to which he supplied texts, including Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Yugoslavian, nor the hundreds of amateur publications.

In the fall of 1977, he arranged with Berkley Medallion to put out three Conan paper- and hardbacks of Conan stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner, the first Conan series without any posthumous revisions and pastiches, which previous collections had in excess.

Lord published a few REH collections on his own, such as the periodical The Howard Collector #1-18 and the chapbook Etchings in Ivory. In The Howard Collector, from 1961 to 1973, Lord featured previously unpublished (or very rare) pieces by Howard, letters by REH and those who knew him, indices of poems and stories, reprints of articles related to Howard, and news about upcoming publications and other events. Thereafter, he published similar material in fanzines of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, the Hyperborian League, and the Esoteric Order of Dagon (E.O.D. — an amateur press association primarily concerned with the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft).

An early admirer of Howard’s poetry, Lord published the first Howard poetry collection Always Comes Evening (1957) through famed Arkham House, subsidizing the costs of the printing himself. Later, he was instrumental in the publication of the Howard verse collections Etchings in Ivory (1968), Singers in the Shadows (1970), Echoes from an Iron Harp (1972), The Road to Rome (1972), Verses in Ebony (1975), Night Images (1976), Shadows of Dreams (1989), and A Rhyme of Salem Town and Other Poems (2007).

He published the first comprehensive bibliography of Howard, complete through 1973, in his The Last Celt: A Bio–Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard (1976), a bible for REH scholars and collectors. The book also contains biographical and autobiographical material about Howard, as well as letters, story synopses and fragments, ephemera, covers illustrating REH stories, and photographs. Lord wrote many articles on Howard (e.g. in The Dark Barbarian). Lord contributed much information to the latest bibliography, The Neverending Hunt (2006, 2008), by Paul Herman and the online bibliography Howardworks.

When Conan Properties was incorporated in 1978 to establish a single entity to deal with Hollywood in negotiations that led to the two Conan movies, Lord served as a corporate director.

Lord has befriended, assisted, advised, and mentored two generations of Howard fans, scholars, and editors, providing copies of his typescripts, letters, and vast knowledge to many of them. For his dedication, achievements, and scholarship, Lord received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1978 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the professional fanzine, The Cimmerian, in 2005. The next year, he was Guest of Honor at the Centennial Robert E. Howard Days festival in Howard’s hometown of Cross Plains, Texas, and in 2007 was GoH at PulpCon 36 in Dayton, Ohio. He is currently Director Emeritus of the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

If you are a fan of Robert E. Howard, Conan, or any of his creations, then you owe Glenn Lord your thanks. If you picked up a Lancer or Sphere or Berkeley in the Howard Boom of the ’60s and ’70s, you can thank Glenn Lord for getting the stories printed across dozens of publishers. If you tore through an issue of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, you can thank Glenn Lord for providing Roy Thomas with indespensible advice and assistance, and even then-unpublished stories for adaptation. If you watched Conan the Barbarian in 1982, you can thank Glenn Lord for negotiating the deal to make and film it. If you’ve enjoyed anything related to Kull, Solomon Kane, or the other creations of the Man from Cross Plains, then you owe Glenn Lord for promoting all of Howard’s work beyond just Conan. If you’ve read any scholarly material on Howard or his creations, be it a critical anthology or a wiki site, you can thank Glenn Lord for being the man to start it all.

No one in 80 years has done more for Howard and his creations than Glenn Lord.

Those who’ve followed my personal blog will know I’ve been producing a fairly lengthy series discussing the relation of John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian to the original Robert E. Howard stories, patterned after the Encyclopedia of Arda’s Filmgoer’s Guides to the Lord of the Rings film adaptations. It seems inevitable, then, that I would produce another one for the upcoming film. This won’t be as lengthy or detailed as the Filmgoer’s Guide ’82, and will stick to bullet points and quotes. A more in-depth edition of the Filmgoer’s Guide will likely follow in due course.

As with the Filmgoer’s Guide ’82, this is not intended to denigrate or criticize the film’s cinematic merits, but simply to serve as a guide. It isn’t about saying the film is bad, just that it’s different. For opinions on the film’s quality, one can go to the multitude of excellent and insightful reviews across the internet, or my review and critique, but this is strictly an impartial assessment – save for a few scathing remarks which I’ve retained for my own sanity, mostly in the film references section.

Anyone with any suggestions/corrections/observations, please let me know in the comments.

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Jason Momoa was among the stars attending the New York Comic Con, and here’s a video of the panel, with Rose McGowan and Stephen Lang. They discuss things like fandom interaction, comparisons with San Diego Comic Con, ideal roles, and Conan being a “family film” (tongue-in-cheek, of course). I can’t embed the video, so you’ll have to click the link, sadly.

There was more from the panel not recorded in the video, as FilmBuffOnline also has information:

Although it got trashed by the critics (scoring a 23% at Rotten Tomatoes) audiences who came out to see this past summer’s fantasy adventure Conan The Barbarian seemed to enjoy the film, giving it a “B minus” CinemaScore. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough audiences showing up to see the film to hit any higher than fourth place at the box office its opening weekend.

This weekend at New York Comic Con, the film’s three stars Jason Momoa, Rose McGowan and Stephen Lang appeared at a panel to discuss the film. Invariably, the subject of the film’s poor box office and the chance of a sequel came was brought up. Momoa, who had stated when he was doing promotion for the film that he had written a story for a possible sequel, stated that there was little possibility that a sequel would happen.

“I haven’t heard a word from anyone and it’s kind of sad because I feel a little cheated myself because we really busted our asses to make it amazing for the fans. I was a fan and I think we really hit it but to tell you the truth a lot of people didn’t go see it so I doubt that they’ll make a sequel. I would love it, but there would be less money there and [a sequel] is something that I would want to be bigger and better.”

McGowan jumped in to add that a fate of a movie can often be outside the control of its cast and crew, stating that the film’s R rating may have kept some audiences away while the PG-13 rated horror film Fright Night, which opened the same day, further siphoned off potential ticket buyers.

“People don’t understand behind the scenes stuff.  Lionsgate and Millennium, the people behind [the movie], to an extent did a really good job. But the entire distribution team at Lionsgate just got replaced. Also the second weekend Hurricane Irene happened and two-thirds of the country was shut down so it was just bad luck essentially.”

McGowan went on to draw an analogy as to what it was like to make a film she was proud of only to have it fail at the box office. “It’s essentially like giving birth to this really great baby, you hand it to the nurse and it falls out of her hands and flies out the window,” she said.

“They dropped my baby?” questioned Momoa after the laughter in response to McGowan’s statement died down.

“They did!” she replied. “They drop kicked it!”

Lang added that he has participated in a number films that weren’t successful right away but still went on to find their audiences. He also stated that he was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to see more of his castmate Momoa continue to explore the character of Conan in future films.

“It’s really easy to do a postmortem on the thing. I think that the R didn’t help the business of the film one bit. Maybe it was necessary for the movie. I see that. I think Rose says it pretty well that the distribution didn’t work out quite it should have. I sure wish this one had done much better than it did. I think it deserved a number of sequels and I would like to see Jason track that character for a long time.”

While my thoughts on the film’s marketing and quality are out there, I wouldn’t rule out Hurricane Irene as a contributing factor to its poor financial returns, what with over a thousand cinemas being closed over the end of the second weekend.  Ah well.

In what is looking increasingly like a screwball comedy, Hollywood Reporter reports (ahem) that Stan Lee Media Inc. are still trying to get Conan.

In August, just as Conan the Barbarian 3D was released, Stan Lee Media Inc. filed a lawsuit in an effort to reclaim ownership on the fictional Conan character. The move by SLMI, which was founded by comic book legend Stan Lee but now operates independently, is part of a larger campaign to put back the pieces from a turbulent bankruptcy from nearly a decade ago.

SLMI believes that finally having a court-recognized board of directors will give it the necessary standing to pursue reclamation of its intellectual property, but the current owners of the Conan character say it’s too late.

SLMI went into bankruptcy in 2001 and soon thereafter, Stan Lee resolved differences with Marvel, bringing over rights to characters including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor, and more.

As SLMI continues its fight against Lee and Marvel in an attempt to convince judges that rights to these characters were unlawfully transferred, SLMI also is seeking to regain additional turf in a separate lawsuit against Conan Sales Co., Paradox Entertainment, and others who aided the allegedly improper transfer of Conan in 2002.

Back then, a bankruptcy judge stopped transfer of SLMI assets, but allowed Conan Sales Co. to reclaim the character it once held per a “Settlement Approval Order.” Now, in the current lawsuit, SLMI says the judge’s order should be declared void because 1,800 SLMI shareholders were not provided sufficient notice.

Last week, the defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit on a variety of points, but especially because the complaint was served on an “untimely” basis.

The motion to dismiss says that SLMI had an opportunity to challenge the order during the bankruptcy process and failed to do so. The defendants argue that the Bankruptcy Code doesn’t require notices to shareholders, and that the bankruptcy judge had found a notice of a hearing to be sufficient.

In order for SLMI to win, the defendants say that their adversary needs to show that a fraud on the court was perpetrated, and nothing in SLMI’s “vague” allegations meet that standard, they say.

Instead, the defendants believe that the lawsuit to reclaim Conan upon the film’s release was an “ambush” that was “intended to, and did, embarrass” defendants at a “very important time.”

A dismissal of the complaint is requested because no substantive allegations are alleged and because relief would cause the defendants, who have spent nearly a decade trying to revitalize the Conan character, “substantial undue prejudice.”

Conan the Barbarian 3D wasn’t exactly a hit, grossing less than $50 million worldwide on a reported budget of $90 million. But a good deal of ancillary revenue and future derivative works could be at stake, and of course, SLMI probably hopes to demonstrate it has regained its feet in the midst of legal battles over other characters.

Mother of Crom…

Editorial

This “news” is so irrelevant I feel redundant actually posting it on the blog, but for some unfathomable reason, sites all over the internet have been passing this non-story along. Why do I consider this a non-story? Because Stan Lee Media Inc have been making a small saga out of their legal issues, none of which have really amounted to anything productive for them. Stan Lee Media have sued companies an individuals from Marvel to Stan Lee himself. The fact that they announced their plans to sue Paradox on the very same day of the film’s release suggests to me that this is nothing to do with an actual legal dispute (since they have zero legal ground to stand on) and everything to do with SLMI trying to get attention for itself. After all, if they were really interested in getting Conan back, why didn’t they do so back when Dark Horse was publishing the successful Truman-Nord Conan series, or when Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures was released, or even when the 2011 film was officially announced back in 2007? Because, good reader, Stan Lee Media Inc. is nothing short of a haemorrhoid on the fundament of the cultural landscape.

Some might think that SLMI getting control of Conan would be a good thing, that Paradox have been mishandling the license (despite actively facilitating the publication of pure Howard texts, as well as spearheading new products and merchandise that has proven much more successful than the film thus far) and that new owners are the only way forward. They might also think that the company is affiliated with Marvel, and seeing the success of the Marvel Studio movies, consider it a great idea. However, one must remember that SLMI has nothing to do with either Stan Lee or Marvel, and that SLMI’s past projects aren’t exactly the talk of the town. Be careful what you wish for.

To recap:

• Stan Lee Media Inc. bought Conan Properties Inc. in November 2000
• Stan Lee Media Inc. filed for bankruptcy in December 2000
• Any assignment of rights to Stan Lee Media Inc. is terminated in 2001, on account of bankruptcy
• Said rights were transferred to various other hands
• Stan Lee Media Inc. thus had the Conan rights for a matter of weeks, producing no new merchandise or material before going bankrupt
• Paradox Entertainment bought Conan Properties Inc, in 2002
• Paradox Entertainment acquires 85% of the Robert E. Howard estate in 2006
• Stan Lee Media Inc. decides to sue Stan Lee in 2011
• Stan Lee and Marvel have nothing to do with Stan Lee Media Inc.
• Stan Lee Media Inc. is a sleazy, contemptible parasite of a company which has nothing better to do than to sue companies for properties it has lost the rights to and never actually did anything with in the first place

OK? I invite anyone more versed in legalese to correct any mistakes, but from what I can see, Stan Lee Media Inc. have no legal leg to stand on, and the only thing they’re entitled to is to be an annoyance.

You cannot kill what does not live, and since Conan Movie Blog doesn’t technically count as a lifeform (yet) it continues to occassionally sound its barbaric yawp as the next piece of Conan-related movie news comes along. Today, it’s the trailer for the blu-ray release, as seen on Movieweb:

A home entertainment debut as fierce as the warrior himself, Lionsgate brings Conan the Barbarian to 3D/2D Blu-ray Disc, 2D Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Digital Download and On Demand this November. In an epic battle led by an epic hero, Jason Momoa (HBO’s Game of Thrones) stars as Conan, the Cimmerian set on avenging his father’s death. The action-packed film, directed by Marcus Nispel (Friday the 13th), also stars Rachel Nichols (Star Trek), Stephen Lang (Avatar), Rose McGowan (Planet Terror) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy).

Based on the character of Conan as originally created by Robert E. Howard, a boy born on the battlefield grows into a hulking warrior hell-bent on avenging his father’s death. But Conan’s personal vendetta soon escalates into an epic battle of impossible odds, facing the fiercest of rivals and the most horrific of monsters.

I like this press release a lot better than the one on Blu-Ray.com: it reads better, they choose better “as seen in” references for the stars (seriously, if you were Rachel Nichols, would you rather be associated with Star Trek or G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra?) and it’s a better description of the film itself. Movieweb also has artwork matching the pictures seen in our last report.

As for the trailer… I’m amazed they’re still using the terrible “beta” animation for the Mask of Acheron instead of the one that appears in the film (and the first bloody trailer), not to mention Movie Trailer Guy mispronounces Conan’s name despite the correct pronunciation being used by Rachel Nichols twice within the same twenty seconds, but to be perfectly frank, it’s kind of what I’ve come to expect from whoever makes these trailers. Ah well, the important thing is it lets people know Conan 2011 exists, and if you shied away from it at the cinemas, you can always rent it across multiple media platforms. Who knows, Conan 2011 may yet prove to have legs on the home video market.

And, just because, here’s the Conan 2011 Hungarian DVD:

I like it better than both the US and UK releases.

From Bluray.com:

In November, Lionsgate Home Entertainment will bring the recent Conan the Barbarian reboot to Blu-ray. The film debuted last August and played on both 2D and 3D theatrical screens.

Director Marcus Nispel’s film finds Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Cimmerian hero. Teamed up with a beautiful monastery student (Rachel Nichols, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), Conan undertakes a quest to avenge the death of his father (Ron Perlman, Sons of Anarchy).

Ultimately, his journey puts him at odds with brutal warring peoples, grotesque creatures, and the evil Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang, Avatar), a warlord determined to rule Hyborea alongside his sorceress daughter Marique (Rose McGowan, Scream).

Lionsgate presents the film in two Blu-ray editions – a standard 2D Blu-ray version and a Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray 2D/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack.

While the studio has yet to confirm their respective technical specifications, both sets will contain the following special features:

• Two audio commentaries
• A history of the Conan franchise featurette
• The Man Who Would Be Conan: Robert E. Howard featurette
• Two additional featurettes on the action and fight scenes

The 2D and 3D versions of Conan the Barbarian street on November 22nd.

Sounds like we’re not getting an extended edition, but will be getting some deleted scenes. I’m very intrigued/apprehensive about the “history of Conan” and Howard featurettes, and wondering who’ll be on the audio commentaries: I suspect one will have the stars, and one the production. Not sure if it’ll be enough to convince me to buy it, though.

The report also has two box art pictures up, though again, they could just be placeholders.  They’re very similar box art to the TBC mockups on Amazon, though with the “sword logo, and having swapped the oversaturated red and yellow with a blue & orange tint, inadvertently transforming Khalar’s soldiers into blue lobsters:

At least it doesn’t have those dubious single word endorsements from FHM and Nuts. “Brilliant!” “Awesome!” Put those along with “Monstrously Entertaining!” and “Top-Knotch!” I don’t know whether to be bothered or thankful that Robert E. Howard isn’t mentioned on either cover, but no doubt his name will be on the back.

Comic Book Movie has noted that the UK division of Amazon has uploaded a possible first look at the DVD design for Conan the Barbarian 2011:

The legendary Conan The Barbarian stars ‘Game of Thrones’s Jason Momoa and Avatar’s Stephen Lang. From the producers of The Expendables comes a visual spectacular that brings the fabled action hero Conan to life like never before!Based on the character created by Robert E. Howard, Conan was born on the battlefield.  From those bloodsoaked beginnings, Conan is destined to venture into an unforgiving world after his father is brutally murdered and his village destroyed.  As Conan battles his way through a treacherous world of monsters, sorceresses’ and bloodthirsty enemies, he chances upon Khalar Zym – the warlord responsible for his tribe’s destruction.  And so Conan’s quest for true revenge begins… Also starring Ron Perlman and Rose McGowan.

The massively oversaturated red and orange is reminiscent of the similarly garish cover for Solomon Kane’s UK release, lending weight to the DVD’s prospective legitimacy. Bizarrely, even though the release date for the film on DVD and Blu-Ray hasn’t been announced on Amazon, there are 13 reader reviews as of this writing, no doubt for the film itself: it would be nice if they’d waited until we found out the extra features and picture/sound quality. Some are quite fun – Davywavy2 seems to think Conan was taken into slavery, that Conan knew Khalar Zym’s name, and seemed oblivious to Robert E. Howard, but the review is quite entertainingly snarky – and others are just a few lines. Expect the number of reviews to rocket in time: I might add my own if I get it on DVD.

UPDATE: The US Amazon page has a release date – 22nd November. It also has 22 customer reviews, so have a gander at them if you please.

Stonecold-mike of the Robert E. Howard Forums alerted me to this interesting development:

I was sent a note from someone saying that Solomon Kane is available as a download through Netflix.  Sadly this does not appear to be true – at least from Netflix in Canada where I am right now.  Solomon Kane remains unavailable in North America for what I now understand are stupid legal reasons that I can’t share…Maybe they’ll get sorted, maybe not. (BTW, if it is available on Neflix USA – can someone tell me.)….but this article from Salon.com feels like a small vindication.

http://tinyurl.com/3rbwbep

Though I’d love to take a crack at Conan and I don’t want to insult the people who made the new one but it wasn’t great and I could do better for a smaller budget.  How Conan got that massive release and Kane has still absolutely nothing – not even DVD – breaks my heart.  I don’t even mind of people hate my film, I’d still at least like them to have the chance to form an opinion.

Well, then…

Editorial

Folks familiar with my review of Solomon Kane and subsequent musings, the DVD, and its relation to the source material, will know I’ve been pretty tough on the film for its divergences from the source material and its historical flubs, be it comparatively minor blunders like the Union Flag appearing years before the Union Flag was designed, to more serious issues like the weird Catholo-Puritanism religious confusion. However, there’s a critical difference between Solomon Kane and Conan the Barbarian: the guy who directed Solomon Kane actually knows how to direct a film. Thus, while I shudder at what Bassett might do with Conan given his handling of Kane – my hyperbolic fear is we’ll discover his mother was a Stygian sorceress, “explaining” his hatred of civilization and sorcery while adding a Freudian subtext to his dealings with women – and considering I had serious problems with Solomon Kane, I can’t disagree that he would’ve made a more coherent, interesting and worthy film.

This puts me in some contention with those Howard fans & scholars who liked Conan and didn’t like Kane, but all things considered, I truly think that Kane was just a better film.  It was closer to REH’s world and creation than Conan, it was more tightly edited, better choreographed, more interestingly designed, better scored, infinitely better acted – and, yes, better directed, no question.  The action scenes in Kane made me cringe in the right way – mostly because you could actually see what was happening – and the supernatural creatures were infinitely more frightening and well-conceived than the ones in Conan.  And, just like Momoa, Purefoy could’ve made a brilliant Kane in an actual adaptation.

Bassett wouldn’t be my first choice by any means, not just because of Kane, but because I’d much rather he make a fantastic Elric film. After Conan, I don’t want to see Nispel anywhere near a property I love again. So it might be damning with faint praise, but frankly, I think the Conan film franchise could do much worse. Kane didn’t even do much worse than Conan at the box office, $19 million in the foreign market compared to Conan’s $27 million – and that’s with barely a fraction of the media saturation and brand equity of Conan.

Well, a little over a month since the film’s US premiere and Conan, and the film’s first few weeks in the open world are in the books. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have gone particularly well, critically or financially: Box Office Mojo’s current numbers crunch to only $21,180,241 million domestic takings and $27,500,000 foreign, amounting to $48,680,241 worldwide. While Box Office Mojo isn’t infallible – it still cites the production budget as $90 million despite Avi Lerner and Fredrik Malmberg confirming the budget as $70 million on multiple occasions – it’s a fairly reliable site for the most part. This is a pretty big disappointment for all involved, and although the first Conan trailer got a lot of buzz on the ‘net in the first week of its release, Conan the Barbarian 2011 has officially underperformed.

I’m not an industry analyst, so I can’t say with any degree of authority why this happened, though blame has been levelled at everything from the marketing to the film’s quality to the Conan brand equity. All we can really do is look at reviews, and see what they see. To that end, I’ve gathered some of what I consider to be the most perceptive and insightful reviews of Conan 2011 in this post, be they positive or negative, hoping that this might tell us something. I may disagree with, say, Phipps’ idea that the 1982 film was the best adaptation of Howard we could get, and Harry Knowles’ wish for Oliver Stone to get his hands on Conan fills me with terror, but they’re pretty good nonetheless.

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