Again Latinoreview reveals the casting results for another character in the upcoming Conan Movie. This time it’s Ukafa:

Ukafa is in his 30s-40, very dark-skinned African or African American, massively framed at six-foot-five, gold-toothed, hardened by a lifetime of war, a leader of Kushite Tribemen from the savannahs of Kush. Ukafa is Khalar Singh’s second in command, jealous that Singh’s son, Fariq, will one day be warlord. He obeys his leader but plots the overthrow of his son. He is a mighty warrior and unbeatable in battle—until he comes face to face with Conan.

It seems that Mixed Martial Arts fighter Bob Sapp will be filling the part of this villain character. At least the description fits him pretty well. And he has the wanted “gangsta” appeal too.

Since I absolutely hated the character description from the very first second I laid eyes on it, I personally couldn’t care less which actor is cast for bad gangsta dude with the golden tooth. It’s just a dissapointment, that all the rewriting could not smack some sense into the script and get rid of this over-the-top Bombatta copy.

As reported by Celebrityauthentics, Mickey ‘The Wrestler’ Rourke will play the part of Corin, Conan’s father in the upcoming Conan Movie by Millenium/Paradox/Lionsgate. They say he will soon fly off to Bulgaria to start shooting the scenes, where he will most likely meet Leo Howard who plays his young son.

As I’ve said in the past, Mickey Rourke is in my opinion a great actor and has lots of screen presence, but he also has this inherent “slowness” in his portrayal of the characters, that I wouldn’t necessarily connect in my mind with the Cimmerian father of furious Conan. Since Rourke is a very versatile actor though, I am sure he will, as always, deliver a great performance and put his own mark on the beginning of the movie.

Deadline just announced, that the Conan Movie screenplay is getting another rewrite, this time by the hand of Sean Hood, also a horror interested writer, just like Andrew Lobel it seems.

The nature of a screenplay is that it tends to be rewritten several times before the cameras roll and there are several reasons for this to happen; One obviously being that it’s not good enough in general, the other ones involve the quality of the characters, depth, flow and very importantly budgeting. A script has to be budgeted and sometimes a writer is asked to rewrite, or put a section in or out depending on the budget. We don’t know the reason for this continued rewrite or polish, since nothing was said about the scope or the reasons for the rewrite.

These last two writers involved seem to have a lot of talent on their side and are much less commercial than the Donnelly/Oppenheimer team, which in my opinion is always a good thing when it comes to movie screenplays and I personally hope, that even if the movie is not REH, they have the power to turn it at least into an enjoyable fantasy movie. (I know, we have enough of those already and REH was supposed to have his turn now… )

Desmoinesregister made their way to the training grounds of Jason Momoa, to talk to him and his family about the present situation and his preparations involved for the shoot of the Conan movie. Jason’s training started in early February, were he was enrolled in a six-week training course, to bulk up and get in shape to play the role of Conan with a bit more of muscle. He hopes to build up 10 pounds of muscle under the supervision of David Leitch, stunt performer on The Matrix and Bourne Ultimatum, before the shooting starts. Jason also did “research” with the original books instead of taking his inspiration on how to play Conan from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

All in all, the interview/report seems fairly standard, but it doesn’t sound like Jason is totally hyped to play Conan, to be honest, since he says that this role is an “opportunity” for him, to play other roles. Of course, in the world of Hollywood one role is just a catapult for the next, but I would have loved to see more enthusiasm by the actor who plays such an important fantastical character as Conan in his first interview. I would have wanted to hear something in the line of “I hope this movie is going to be a big success, as I would love to grow this amazing character”. Maybe that is just his personality to play it cool and I hope he knows that playing Conan is not just an opportunity, but first and foremost a responsibility for a Legend in Fantasy.

According to iesb.net the upcoming Conan movie will be filmed in 3D or at least have partly 3D effects, since Lionsgate has sent out job offers to several special effect houses to do the 3D element of the movie. After Avatar being such a huge success and the reason why many cinemas have installed 3D projectors and technology this new way of pulling the audience into a movie has gone mainstream over night.

While these in general are good news, since well done 3D filming can improve the overall experience, it has to be put in good hands, or it is turned into a gimmick by the “mainstream” intentions of managers (aka things attacking the camera constantly). In addition filming a movie in 3D or doing it’s effects in 3D, is going to be a lot more expensive than filming it traditionally, so the question is where the cut in the films budget (depending on the extense of the 3D effects) will be made.

This is both good and bad news and only time will tell on which side of the poker table this rumour will fall.

Since we are obviously going to see an origins tale for the new Conan Movie(again…), they needed to cast an actor to play the role of Young Conan. According to Latinoreview, the descision is made and Young Conan will be played by 12 year old actor Leo Howard.

Leo Howard had some appearances on several TV series and the role for Young Snake Eyes in the G.I. Joe movie. Leo Howard is a brown haired and brown eyed young american actor, that has quite some skill in martial arts, making him a good choice for acting out the fights young Conan is going to have in the movie.

I personally just hope, he can tune down the “american” accent while acting out Conan, since I still don’t think it’s appropriate for a Cimmerian. In many ways he looks quite similar to the young Conan from the old Conan the Barbarian Movie, which is yet another hint at the fact, that we are not in for a re-envisioning, but a remake with “modern shoes”.