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.

References to the original stories

“Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, where shining kingdoms spread across the world” is a truncated excerpt from the first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword” by Robert E. Howard. More information on this can be found here.

Acheron was a kingdom which once dominated a substantial portion of the world three thousand years before Conan’s time, and was destroyed by a barbarian horde who would go on to found the Hyborian kingdoms of Aquilonia, Nemedia and Argos. The Cimmerians fought the Acheronians, but had no direct part in Acheron’s downfall. The descendants of Acheron persist to Conan’s time, but they are gnarled, twisted, degenerates dwelling in hill and inner-city conclaves, rather than secretive monks of vaguely Asian descent. Acheron was only mentioned in The Hour of the Dragon, chronologically the final Conan story.

The character Xaltotun, seen for a brief moment in the film as one of the Acheronians creating the Mask, is one of the primary antagonists of The Hour of the Dragon. The existence of the mask and especially Xaltotun’s part in its creation present significant continuity issues between the film and the novel, discussed here.

Conan is born on a battlefield, as mentioned in “Black Colossus,” The Hour of the Dragon and Robert E. Howard’s letter to P.S. Miller. All that is known is that he was born during a battle between his tribe and a horde of raiding Vanir.

Conan “storming the high walls of Venarium” is a reference to the battle of Venarium retold in “Beyond the Black River,” one of the formative experiences in Conan’s early life. More information on Conan’s early life can be found here.

Cimmeria is Conan’s homeland, described as a place of perpetual mist and darkness, where even by day the land is sinister, and where the sun never breaks through the clouds. More information on Howard’s Cimmeria can be found here.

The Cimmerians, Conan’s people, are never depicted directly in the Conan stories, but Howard noted they were uniformly black-haired and blue or grey-eyed, tall, powerfully-built, and moody. They were superlative warriors and were never conquered, despite being the target of many invasions by Picts, Acheronians, Aquilonians, Hyrkanians and more, only being displaced by the great Nordic Drift. The women are noted to have fought alongside the men. More information on the Cimmerians can be found here.

The “Zingaran Slave Colony” refers to Zingara, one of the more prominent non-Hyborian kingdoms, though it’s unclear whether it is a colony in Zingara, one run by Zingarans, or has Zingaran slaves. Zingara, like many civilized kingdoms of the time, was known to have slaves, though it was not particularly known for its slavery industry in the stories. Zingara was the setting of two chapters of The Hour of the Dragon.

Messantia is the capital of Argos, one of the last Hyborian Kingdoms to be established, and the setting for the first few pages of “Queen of the Black Coast” and two chapters of The Hour of the Dragon.

“… it was he who stole The Elephant’s Heart and slew the sorcerer Yara!” – Artus’ story of his first meeting with Conan and the boasts that follow is a reference to “The Tower of the Elephant,” one of the most celebrated of Robert E. Howard’s stories: however, the details in Artus’ recollection are very different from the events of that tale, and might be attributed to Artus “spinning a yarn.” The full story as it appeared in Weird Tales can be read here.

The Turanian Desert may be a reference to the Eastern Desert, an arid expanse east of the Hyborian Kingdoms, which was conquered by Turan in Conan’s later life.

“I live, I love, I slay, and I am content” is an altered extract from one of the most famous passages in “Queen of the Black Coast,” and is one of the most concise examples of Conan’s philosophical worldview in its original form. More on this can be found here.

Hyrkania is a vast region in the far east of the Hyborian Age, occupying the lands east of the Vilayet Sea (what is now the Caspian Sea), and stretching to the eastern coast of Asia. The Hyrkanians were a nomadic culture analogous to the Mongols, and although no Hyrkanian cities are mentioned in the stories, they are mentioned on the Vilayet and eastern coasts of Hyrkania in Howard’s “The Hyborian Age” essay.

References to the Conan Franchise

Marvel Comics

Khalar Zym, a Nemedian (according to the script and Stackpole’s novelization), carries a gigantic warship over land using a team of elephants and slaves. In “Besieger of Cities” in issue #148 The Savage Sword of Conan, the Cimmerian is pursued down the Black Coast by the Nemedian Navy: Zym’s method of transportation perhaps offers an explanation of how a land-locked country thousands of miles from any substantial body of water can support a navy capable of pursuing Conan all the way to the Western Ocean. A preposterous explanation, true, but still…

The Dweller is possibly a homage to the titular monster from The Savage Sword of Conan #13, “The Dweller in the Dark.”

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

The film’s title logo is remarkably similar to the one used in the 1982 film.

Corin’s sword bears a ram’s skull motif, with the horns forming the crossguard: in the 1982 film, the Master’s Sword bears a stag’s skull motif, with the antlers forming the crossguard.

Both films show Conan’s father forging a sword using a casting technique, a method mostly used for bronze rather than steel swords.

In the 1982 film, Conan’s father’s sword is taken by Thulsa Doom, and Conan reclaims it from his first lieutennant Rexor; in the 2011 film, Conan’s father’s sword is taken by Marique, and Conan reclaims it from Khalar Zym.

The concept of Conan’s home village being destroyed, his tribe massacred and his father slain by a warlord on a search for an ancient secret is shared by both the 1982 and 2011 films.

Conan the Destroyer

Both films feature a princess (Tamara and Jehnna) whose “purity” is used in conjunction with an ancient artefact (the Horn of Dagoth and the Mask of Acheron) in a sacrifice which the villains use to resurrect an ancient evil (Dagoth and Maliva).

They also have an irritating, ineffectual sidekick who claims to be a great thief, but is actually a phoney hanging onto his giant friend’s coattails (Ela-Shan and Malik)

Red Sonja

Both films feature a sanctuary of female monks being besieged by a villain – who received a disfiguring scar by the hero during the attack on the hero’s home (Khalar Zym and Gedrun) – searching for a magical Macguffin which will aid them in ruling the world (the Mask of Acheron and the Talisman). They also feature an unarmed young boy who defeats armed men using martial arts (Young Conan and Prince Tarn), a female warrior who nonetheless becomes a damsel-in-distress at some point (Tamara and Red Sonja) and are thoroughly in the shadow of their male companions (Conan and Kalidor), and the villain’s castle collapses during the final battle as a result of the powerful sorcery at work.

Conan the Adventurer

Conan has to prove himself worthy to wield his father’s sword as a final test of his manhood, failing in an early attempt as a youngster: it is only as an adult that he finally claims the sword and wields it. This exact dynamic is seen in “The Night of Fiery Tears,” the pilot episode of Conan the Adventurer.

Conan: The Adventurer

In the 2011 film, Conan’s closest ally is a black warrior with dreadlocks and a fiery temper; in the 1998 tv series, one of Conan’s companions is a black warrior with dreadlocks and a fiery temper.

Kull the Conqueror

Both films feature the resurrection of a long-dead witch (Maliva and Akivasha) who a group of conspirators hope will give them the secrets of Acheron in a bid to rule the world.

Dark Horse Comics

Corin and Fialla are the names of Conan’s parents in the Dark Horse Conan comics, and Conan’s attire is very similar to a costume worn in Conan 0 and the Born on the Battlefield story arc.

Inventions of the Filmmakers

While the above posts may give the impression that the film is, in fact, fairly faithful to Howard’s work, one must remember that all of that amounts to a fraction of the screenplay. To truly understand how divergent the film is, one need only look at the story.

Here is the plot synopsis of the film from its Wikipedia page:

During the Hyborean Age, a group of sorcerers from Acheron created a mask from the skulls of dead kings and sacrificed their pure blood daughters to the dark gods in order to give the mask the power to subjugate the entire world. After killing countless people in their campaign to conquer the planet, the sorcerers were defeated by the barbarians led by Corin (Ron Perlman), who destroys the mask, scattering the pieces across the land, and keeping one for himself. Shortly thereafter, in a battle against a rival tribe, Corin’s wife, after being wounded by the enemy, gives birth to their son, Conan (Leo Howard), and dies.

Conan grows up to become a skilled, but violent warrior, whom his father believes is not ready to wield his own sword. One day, their village is attacked by the forces of Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), a warlord that is reuniting the pieces of the Mask of Acheron in order to revive his dead wife and conquer Hyborea. After locating Corin’s piece and murdering the entire village, Zym leaves. Conan is the only survivor, and swears revenge.

20 years later, Conan (Jason Momoa) is a pirate still seeking for revenge. With the help of his friend Artus (Nonso Anozie), he raids a slave camp and takes the rescued slaves to the city of Messantia, where Conan meets Ela-Shan (Saïd Taghmaoui), a thief being chased by a man whom Conan recognizes as Lucius (Steven O’Donnell), one of Zym’s soldiers from years before. Conan allows himself to be captured alongside Ela-Shan, and, in prison, escapes and confronts Lucius, who is forced to reveal that Zym is planning to sacrifice the pure blood descendant of the sorcerers of Acheron in order to unleash the mask’s power. He helps the rest of the prisoners to escape, and, in retribution, Ela-Shan tells Conan that, if he ever needs him, Conan will find him at the City of Thieves, Argalon.

Meanwhile, Zym and his daughter, the sorceress Marique (Rose McGowan) attack a monastery where they believe the pure blood is. Sensing something is wrong, Fassir (Raad Rawi), an elderly monk who teaches the monastery’s students, tells one of them, Tamara (Rachel Nichols), to run away and return to her birthplace. Tamara’s carriage is chased by Zym’s men. Conan hears the commotion and, recognizing Zym’s men, attacks and kills them, saving Tamara. Conan also captures one of Zym’s men, Remo (Milton Welsh), and catapults him to Zym’s nearby camp after forcing him to reveal Tamara’s importance as the pure blood.

Zym and Marique confront Conan, who is pretending to be interested in exchanging Tamara for gold, and he attacks Zym, but Marique saves her father by invoking soldiers made of sand and then poisoning Conan with a poison-laced boomerang sword. Tamara rescues him and they return to Artus’ boat, stationed nearby, where Artus helps Conan recover. The boat is attacked by Zym’s men, and, although they kill several of Conan’s men, they are defeated. Conan orders Artus to return to Messantia with Tamara and departs to confront Zym in his kingdom. Artus tells Tamara that Conan left a map behind and she follows him, meeting with him in a cave, where they make love. The next day, as she’s returning to the boat to join Artus so they can sail away, she’s captured by Zym’s men.

Conan finds out about Tamara’s capture and departs to Argalon, where he asks Ela-Shan to help him break into Zym’s castle unnoticed, while Zym prepares to drain Tamara of her blood to unleash the mask’s energies. After confronting several monsters that guard the dungeons, Conan infiltrates Zym’s followers and watches as Zym puts on the mask, having removed some of Tamara’s blood. He confronts Zym, and the cave where they’re in begins to crumble in the ensuing battle, killing Zym’s followers. Conan is able to release Tamara, and she escapes as he fights Zym. The castle starts to fall, as Marique attacks Tamara. Conan hears Tamara’s scream and attacks Marique, cutting her hand off and Tamara kicks her into a pit, where she gets impaled by a large spike below. Zym comes and, upon finding his daughter’s corpse, he swears revenge upon Conan.

Conan and Tamara become trapped in a unstable bridge as Zym attacks them. He uses the mask’s power to call forth the spirit of his dead wife, Maliva, a powerful sorceress who was executed by the monks from Tamara’s monastery for attempting to unleash occult forces to destroy Hyborea, and Maliva’s spirit begins to possess Tamara. She begs Conan to let her fall, but he refuses, and instead stabs the bridge before jumping to safety with Tamara. The bridge collapses along with Zym. The power-hungry ruler falls to the lava below the immense precipice screaming the name of his wife, implying his demise. The mask shatters upon impact with the ground below.

Conan and Tamara escape, and he returns her to her birthplace, telling her that they’ll meet again. He then returns to his old village and tells his father that he had avenged his death and recovered the sword Zym stole from him, honoring his memory.

Here is the plot synopsis edited down and altered to include only the elements from the original stories:

During the Hyborean Age… sorcerers from Acheron… defeated by the barbarians…

…in a battle against a rival tribe… gives birth to their son, Conan…

Conan grows up to become a skilled, but violent warrior…

20 years later, Conan is a pirate… city of Messantia…

That’s it. Aside from the above references and others highlighted earlier, none of the story, characters, places or events can be found in the original stories. Khalar Zym, Marique, Tamara, Fassir, Artus, Ela-Shan, Lucius, Remo, Ukafa, Akhoun, Cherin, and all other supporting characters are inventions of the filmmakers. (We can infer that Conan had a mother and father, but their names and history is absent in the original stories.) The Monastery, Shaipur Outpost, the Forbidden Forest, Khor Kalba, Skull Cave and Argalon are inventions of the filmmakers. The Mask of Acheron is a creation of the filmmakers, and so, there is no prophecy regarding its reformation.

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.

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.

General Movie Reviewers

Any flickering hope dies with the coming of the grown-up Conan, played by Jason Momoa. The hulking Momoa’s effective in a not-worlds-removed-role on Game Of Thrones, but unlike in Thrones, here he barks and growls his dialogue with the unpracticed enthusiasm of a first-time Ren Fair performer. He’s not acting. He’s LARPing. The grim material around him doesn’t provide much distraction. Nispel seems lost when trying to film a simple swordfight, much less the full-on battles: The special effects are sparing and not particularly special, and the green-screen backgrounds and scenes shot in what looks like the cloudiest parts of Bulgaria make a poor substitute for Howard’s Hyborian Age landscapes. They, and the stories that take place there, remain again trapped on the page waiting for a better adaptation.
- Keith Phipps, AVClub

The facts are – while a lot of the film choices annoyed me, this did LOOK like a CONAN movie should.   I just don’t see why the producers of this film don’t understand that they have a potential LORD OF THE RINGS or 300 style success if they JUST ADAPT Robert E Howard properly…  with a  TALENTED filmmaker who is passionate.   That understands not just the pretty aesthetics, the blood and savagery and the eroticism of the era…  BUT THE PSYCHOLOGY of it.   The LEGENDARY nature of it all.
Get someone like Mark Protosevich to write it.   Then get someone that has a history of seriously great films.   Stop hiring hacks to kick off what should be a franchise.   This could be JAMES BOND…  and Momoa can do it.   There’s evidence here in the film, I just hope that the missteps of Nispel won’t doom the franchise.
If you treated this source material with the respect that Warner Bros did HARRY POTTER – we’d have movies to worship.   I’m pretty sure they have the actor…  let’s hope the film succeeds well enough for a second chance.   And if they seize that chance, they do it right.
- Harry Knowles, Ain’t It Cool News

Fantasy (be it of the “epic” or “sword and sorcery” branches) has fared even worse than science fiction on the big screen. While SF can at least boast a few cerebral film classics (in contrast to hundreds of brilliant, thought-provoking novels that should remain cinematically unadapted but more widely read), epic fantasy has produced about two significant works (Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and the recent HBO series Game of Thrones) and a bubbling witch’s cauldron of juvenilia (pretty much everything else). The sword and sorcery subgenre has mostly been served in the wake of the ’80s Dungeons and Dragons craze and reflects the influence of that game (and its target audience of adolescent males who want to see women in fetish wear and varying states of sublimation and sword-wielding barbarians in loincloths). Robert E. Howard’s iconic Conan character has already been disappointingly brought to the screen prior to this artless and vacuous waste and surely someone will get around to Michael Moorcock’s drug-addled eternal anti-hero Elric and perhaps even Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. What was lost in past adaptations of fantastic fiction, is lost in this film under discussion and stands to be lost in the future, is not only the aforementioned and crucial sense of wonder, but the depth and subtext of truly great fantasy writing. Fantasy will be forever a cinematic romper room for twinkle-toed elves or an abattoir for raging barbarians if filmmakers don’t respect their source material enough to present it (and their prospective viewers) with a work capable of intellectual depth, subtlety, a vast history and the all-encompassing sweep of sheer imagination.
- Joseph A. Gervasi, Cinedelphia

“Conan the Barbarian” is a brutal, crude, witless high-tech CGI contrivance, in which no artificial technique has been overlooked, including 3-D. The third dimension once again illustrates the principle that when a movie largely takes place indoors in dimly lit spaces, the last thing you need is a pair of dark glasses.
- Roger Ebert

You don’t go to a movie like this expecting to hear Shakespearean dialogue, but the action, under Marcus Nispel’s direction, is consistently vigorous and exciting. So are the visual effects, from an epic battle with sand creatures to a struggle with an enormous sea serpent. But it’s the bad guys who give the movie weight and solidity. Lang is a truly formidable opponent with a strong physical presence; McGowan stops just this side of camp to become a figure of danger.
I try to take each movie I see on its own terms; this isn’t my favorite kind of entertainment, and some of its violence is extreme, but on the whole Conan the Barbarian is pretty good, for what it is. The screenplay by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood may not be inspired, but it does what it sets out to do. I’m not sure if Jason Momoa has what it takes to become an A-list star, but he definitely looks the part of Conan.
Incidentally, I’ve been quoting my favorite line from the film: “I live, I love, I slay, I am content.” I think I’m going to adopt it as my new mantra.
- Leonard Maltin, Movie Crazy

Personally, I quite liked the new Conan The Barbarian, though it is by no means a complete epic. This is pure action, and a total escape from reality. Momoa steals the show as the title character and it is worth seeing this film just for his performance alone – he embodies the character of Conan. In several ways, looking back on it, it was the character of Conan that made Arnold Schwarzenegger (and his career). In comparison, it is Jason Momoa makes Conan a reality. Novel and comic fans of Conan The Barbarian are certain to love the film.
- cGt2099, Geeks of Doom

Here’s the thing about making a movie about Conan the Barbarian: his creator, Robert E. Howard, is such a definitive creator in the sword & sorcery genre that he’s influenced and been imitated in countless stories. As a result, when you set out to create a modern take on his creations, it’s easy to fall into the trap of recycling elements that have become standard fare for fantasy barbarians over the past eighty years, while completely missing what makes Conan himself such a unique character. And honestly, based on the trailers, that’s what I thought was going to happen in the new Conan the Barbarian movie, just like it’s happened before.
But then, about a half hour into it, Conan cut off a man’s head and then punched another man in the face with the severed head, and I knew that wasn’t going to be the problem.
- Chris Sims, Comics Alliance

Though it has a decent Conan and a halfway acceptable off-the-peg baddie in Stephen Lang as Khalar Zym, nothing else works. The good girl (Rachel Nichols) is dreary and the bad girl (Rose McGowan) ridiculous — note that the villainess is the only woman in the film who doesn’t show her tits (seven Russian ladies are credited as ‘Topless Wenches’). Characters drift into frame, fight beside or against Conan, and wander off or die without troubling to introduce themselves. The plot meanders from place to place without urgency — when Khalar Zym finally puts on the magic mask, it doesn’t seem to make him more formidable. Action scenes spring up and blow over like summer storms (a carriage chase is the best bit), with moments of CGI-augmented bloodiness which ought to be more shocking than they are. And it has that muddy, ugly, drab look common among mid-range 3D movies. Theoretically exciting, it’s somehow very dull.
Leaving aside Milius’ Conan The Barbarian, this is thinner beer even than Conan The Destroyer, more on the scale of imitations like The Sword And The Sorcerer and Hawk The Slayer – if lacking their intermittent sense of fun. Howard’s fans were better served earlier in the year by Solomon Kane, though that also made the strange decision to use one of his characters but not adapt any of his (still readable and stirring) stories.
- Kim Newman, Empire

Conan the Barbarian is the worst kind of failure, the one where nobody shows up to play. Nispel and his collaborators don’t try to mimic the Milius version, but they don’t bother re-conceiving it, either, save to neuter the robust machismo that was the earlier film’s lifeblood. They simply go through the expected paces for sword-and-sorcery adventures; if he wasn’t called “Conan,” he could go by any other name, and no one would be the wiser.
- Scott Tobias, NPR

So, for a Conan The Barbarian movie to be about stopping an arch-villain from fulfilling an ancient prophecy and taking over the world by bringing all the McGuffins together… it’s a little like a Game of Thrones movie about noble hero Jon Snow and his band of whacky allies (oh, that fun-loving Littlefinger!) going on an epic quest to slay the dark queen Cersei before she uses her orc horde to conquer the world. The point has been missed.
Now, you can still have a character arc and all that “this time, it’s personal!” stuff without giving Conan a bunch of murders to avenge. Casino Royale had a very personal, transformative story for Bond and he never looked up from a picture of Le Chiffre to say “This man killed my father!” Then Quantum of Solace rolled around and even though the objective was much more personal for Bond, the story wasn’t good.
- Kickpuncher, Fempop

Howard Fans

All I know is them there fools do not know what they missed out on. When I like a movie I see it several times before it’s pulled and goes to home video. I saw Alien resurection 4 times and The first Brendan Fraser MUMMY film 3 times and each LORD OF THE RINGS FILM 3 TIMES….CONAN I will go see again at least 2 more times. ( Then when I get the DVD another 4 times )
If I had to rate this film on a scale of 1 to 10 Battle axes…I give it an easy 8 battle axes! Easy I say!
I certainly hope there will be another one as they say they have planned. With the right promotional campaign and a big name or two…there is no reason it would not do better.
Mikeyboy, CROM!

On that front, I can say without hesitation that Conan the Barbarian is not as bad as I had expected. If I had to pick a single word to describe it, though, it would almost certainly be “mediocre.” I knew going into it that I was not going to be getting Robert E. Howard’s Conan, but I held out hope, particularly in light of some of the reviews that I’d read, that I might still be getting a solid sword-and-sorcery film whose protagonist just happened to share a name with a certain famous Cimmerian. Unfortunately, that’s not what I got. What I saw today was, frankly, a mess and not of the glorious kind.
- James Maliszewski, Grognardia

Conan the Barbarian is total bullshit. It is one of the most aggressively bad and boring movies in a summer more full of them than any in recent memory. Thankfully, it seems that audiences agree as the movie is an unequivocal failure financially as well as creatively. Some people are going to say that this movie is “good enough” just because it’s “supposed to be” a dumb action movie with tits, blood, and cavebrow. I’m sorry but no, fucking fuck no. That is not good enough. If you’re satisfied with that, Crom laughs at you and I have no time for you. I’m sure you liked Green Lantern too, didn’t you. I just don’t understand the need to defend stuff that is actually out to make money off of low audience threshold for mediocrity or worse. Conan the Barbarian doesn’t insult our collective intelligence as much as, say, Transformers 3 or Cowboys and Aliens but it isn’t much better and at least those films had stories.
- McCoyed

A skilled film maker with a desire to make Robert E. Howard’s work come alive on the big screen could create something that was a box office success and was memorable, a film that would stand out in the sword and sorcery genre and would join films like The Lord of the Rings in demonstrating to audiences and to film companies that a well made and lovingly crafted fantasy film is box office gold. Instead we get the kind of dreck that could have existed on screen with any character name. The 2011 Conan the Barbarian film could just has easily been called Bob the Barbarian as there is nothing but a few names lazily borrowed from Howard’s Canon to associate this movie with the work that Howard created.
In recent years the quote “Don’t judge a book by its movie” has become popular. It couldn’t be used more appropriately than when comparing this film to the printed pages that “inspired” it.
- Carl V, Stainless Steel Droppings

Howard Scholars

There are bound to be comparisons to other Howard based films, and that is sad.  The original Conan movie, of which this is not a remake, was so far off base on every level that it was laughable.  It has even been parodied (Master Pancake Theater’s Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Musical) and with good reason.  John Milius had some sort of ridiculous vision of what Conan should be, and he tried to throw in everything but the kitchen sink.  Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan is a lumbering dumb ass, whose swordplay is slow and posing.  While he’s showing off, swinging that big ole eighty pound sword around in circles, any real swordsman could kill him five times.  And the acting?  What acting?  The follow-ups to the 1982 film, Conan the Destroyer and the almost Conan, Red Sonja, are in a class of pure garbage all by themselves.  The 1982 film inspired dozens of imitations.  Many of those were light years better than Destroyer or Sonja.
- Dennis McHaney

Overall, and given the amount of Hollywood hamstringgery that the filmmakers Paradox had to endure to get this film made, I think they did the one thing that they could do, and that’s focus on the character of Conan.
This movie, for all of its flaws (and I’m not going do disagree with anything that’s been written about Nispel’s direction or editing), represents a course correction in popular culture, the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades.
This film is to pop-culture Conan as Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman was to pop-culture Batman. Just as the then-new dark and gothic, troubled Batman permanently wiped Adam West’s smirk off of the map, so too does this fast and agile, smart and mean Conan eviscerate John Milius’ samurai stand-in, and most especially, that Dungeons and Dragons module that was Conan the Destroyer.
- Mark Finn

There are two Conans. The first one, Conan of Cimmeria, was created by Robert E. Howard in 1932 and adventured his way through Weird Tales, The Avon Fantasy Reader, and any number of books over the years. The other, Conan the Barbarian, was created as a simulacrum of the original, able to adventure through Code-approved comic books and, a bit later, movies. The former is the exclusive creation of Robert E. Howard, though a number of others have attempted to write stories about him. The latter is a collaborative effort by many hands, starting with Roy Thomas at Marvel Comics: I’ve lost track of how many different writers, artists, and others have been involved in the comics and movies. Conan the Cimmerian is a literary character. Conan the Barbarian is a pop culture icon.
The title of the new film should clue you in to which Conan it is about.
- Rusty Burke

As I sat there in the dark watching a disaster unfold before my eyes, I got to thinking why should I have to lower my expectations? Why can’t Hollywood make a decent Robert E. Howard movie? Given the amount of source material, they could have easily adapted a story or several stories instead of doing a ham-handed remake of Milius’ Conan. Yes, I know that I am like Charlie Brown attempting to kick the football, but thwarted every time by Lucy pulling it away at the last moment. I guess I hope just one time the football won’t be pulled away.
I did like a few things about the movie. I thought the sand monsters fight scene was well done, sort of homage to Ray Harryhausen’s skeleton warriors scene from Jason and the Argonauts. The scenes of Corin with young Conan were well done, as was the scene with the wheel Tamara was tied to was falling down the well shaft (or whatever it was) with Conan and Khalar Zym fighting on top of it. But overall, the negatives far outweighed the positives.
- Damon Sasser

Saw Conan the Barbarian last night. Revoltingly stupid, incomprehensibly plotted and edited, and overflowing with the kind of quasi-erotic torture porn (seemingly pulled wholesale out of a serial killer’s wet dreams) that’s become a staple of both fantasy literature and Hollywood films this century. Easily one of the worst films I’ve seen during decades of painfully slumming through mediocre genre fare — I daresay even Uwe Boll (the ham-fisted director commonly seen as the modern era’s answer to Ed Wood) has never made anything this irredeemably rotten. As you know, the best of Robert E. Howard’s pulp tales of the 1930s — which in recent years have been reprinted everywhere from academic presses to Penguin’s prestigious Modern Classics imprint, and which the various silly comic books and movies resemble not a whit — cry out for the cinematic talents of a Akira Kurosawa or a Sergio Leone, men possessed of  the same operatic poetry, grandeur, heroism, and thematic depth found in Howard’s original stories. Perhaps someday. Until then? Well, the audience I saw the movie with seemed to have cheerfully low expectations, yet even they didn’t so much leave the theater as recoil from it. You’ve been warned.
- Leo Grin

You can also find a great deal of cross-posted Conan reviews at CROM!, as well as this thread at the Official Robert E. Howard Forums. Follow this link for my review, and if you dare, you can brave my critique too. Any readers can also put their favourite reviews in the comments, and leave your thoughts and reviews while you’re at it.

Sean Hood has a very frank discussion on his Quora page in regards to the underwhelming weekend takings for Conan:

You make light of it, of course. You joke and shrug. But the blow to your ego and reputation can’t be brushed off. Reviewers, even when they were positive, mocked Conan The Barbarian for its lack of story, lack of characterization, and lack of wit. This doesn’t speak well of the screenwriting – and any filmmaker who tells you s/he “doesn’t read reviews” just doesn’t want to admit how much they sting.

Unfortunately, the work I do as a script doctor is hard to defend if the movie flops. I know that those who have read my Conan shooting script agree that much of the work I did on story and character never made it to screen. I myself know that given the difficulties of rewriting a script in the middle of production, I made vast improvements on the draft that came before me. But its still much like doing great work on a losing campaign. All anyone in the general public knows, all anyone in the industry remembers, is the flop. A loss is a loss.

This ended up on Deadline Hollywood, and led to some interpreting his mention of “making vast improvementsas throwing Donnelly & Oppenheimer under the bus, so to speak. Still others felt he was trying to blame everyone but himself, much like I’d been of Avi Lerner and Joe Drake. However, Sean himself commented at the site, and wanted to assure readers that this was not his intention:

Actually my words “I made vast improvements on the draft that came before me” weren’t very classy because it does sound like I’m throwing the previous writers under the bus, and I need to publicly apologize to Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Andrew Lobel. All I can say is that I didn’t mean it that way and I should have chosen my words more carefully.

What I meant to say that I was proud of the work I did solving problems that that had emerged in the development process, over many years and dozens of drafts. To suggest that I did better work than the writers before me would be both un-classy and flat out incorrect.

Many people have read Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer’s early drafts of Conan when it showed up on the internet, and a great, great number of them think theirs was the best draft of any, including the shooting script. Andrew Lobel’s draft was filled with great humor, which some critics thought the movie lacked.

I didn’t write this to point fingers. As the last writer on the project, the criticism of the story, dialogue, and characterization should fall primarily on me… not my peers, not producers, not studio executives, not the director.

The offending line has been taken from the Quora page, but I’m going to address it all the same.

Editorial

Given that I’ve been following this project for two years, and that I’ve read nearly every iteration of the script, I feel I’m fairly qualified to speak upon the evolution of the film’s story over the past two years.

From this point, I can say that, yes, Sean Hood did improve upon the earlier scripts by a substantial margin, and even though not nearly enough of the script made it to the screen, he did make a clear improvement over the previous drafts, from my point of view. I may have been incredibly harsh on the film, but compared to what could have been if Hood wasn’t brought on board to filter out the dross, it could’ve been worse. I’m talking Uwe Boll-level, and it truly isn’t quite at that echelon. For all my disdain for the film’s direction, editing, story and acting, I stand by my praise of the digital sets, the locations, and Jason Momoa. If this film was anything like the earlier drafts, I don’t think I would be able to do that.

I’m also going to take this opportunity to offer my sincere apologies to Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer. I read their scripts and hated them back in 2009, and still do, but I blamed them personally for the decisions that were made. I accused them of having no understanding of Howard’s character, writing or depth, and felt that all the problems of the project came down to them. After all, it was in their draft that we saw the Cimmerians wiped out by their own dogs turning against them, Corin’s ghost haunting the tormented Conan, and Khalar Singh using the Ceti Eels to get information. Yet as I started to learn more about the production process, I started to understand just how many factors were involved in making this story, how many different cooks were tossing their seasons in the broth, budgetary and logistical concerns overriding creative and logical ones. In effect, I came to the conclusion that Donnelly & Oppenheimer were as hamstrung as Sean Hood was: they were given the locations, props and settings available courtesy of Nu Boyana, given tons of ideas from Nispel (and no doubt also Rattner when he was still in talks) and the producers, and told to write a story from there. Not exactly the best way to write a great story.

However, it’s one thing to just say a script is better or worse than the end result, and another to explain why it is so. Thus, I’m going to get started on a series of posts where I discuss the evolution of the Conan screenplay: from the early days where Khalar Zym was Khalar Singh, Marique was Farique, Ukafa had gold teeth and Alina was still in the story, to the saga of the wounded elephant and Stygian Siege Beetles, on to the shooting script with the villains’ internal scheming and Conan actually showing some vulnerability. Hopefully then you will understand why as bad as I found the film, it’s still, by far, the one I’m happiest to see in the end product – and that even if the scripts I relate do sound better to you, you’ll understand why I came to that conclusion.

EDIT: Some have mentioned concern that this may become be another 20,000 word monster like my critique of the film. Believe me, spending anything more than the bare minimum on the Conan film is the furthest thing from my mind at this point! This will be nothing more than bullet points arranged into a few synopses. I’d be surprised if the word count for each script went into four figures. All my energy of late has been going back into all the projects I neglected: the book, the other blog, and other things not directly related to the film. So don’t worry, I won’t be subjecting you to another dissertation!

Gearing up for the big day!

The Conan 3D Facebook page has a new picture of Leo Howard’s young Conan running amid fire and chaos in his home village:

For more, you will know it by the click of the link.

Chicago Sun Times has an illuminating interview with our man Jason:

How does a man know he has found his inner barbarian? For Jason Momoa, it revolved around reaching out to his he-man friends.

“I wanted to have my nose broken for this role but wasn’t sure how to accomplish it,” says the Iowa native.

So, he enlisted a friend with a fist.

“I was like, ‘Dude, I have this idea. I think you should break my nose. Would you do it?’” Momoa recalls. “My buddy just did it right away, damn it. After it was over, I said, ‘Dude, didn’t you want to think about it for a minute?’ But we’re guys and he said, ‘You don’t have to ask me twice. Done deal.’

“Just please don’t tell my wife about it,” he begs. “I wonder if she reads your newspaper?”

Yes, boys will be barbarians in the new installment of “Conan the Barbarian,” the film franchise that made Schwarzenegger a superstar. Dark-haired, beefy Momoa is at the forefront of new epic battles against very muscular rivals and a few horrific monsters as his Conan tries to save the great nation of Hyboria from supernatural evil.

“He’s a man. He fights, he f—s. He’s a pirate thief. He’s flawed,” Momoa says. “He’s a soldier and a warrior. He won’t fall in battle. Plus, women think he has this animalistic, primal side to him that’s sexy. Above all, he says what he means.”

The 32-year-old was born in Honolulu but grew up in Norwalk, Iowa. After high school, he returned to Hawaii, where he broke into acting with a role in “Baywatch.” Momoa also has starred on series including “North Shore,” “Stargate: Atlantis” and “The Game.”

He also plays Khal Drogo in the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones” and marvels at his newfound fame, including a recent appearance on Jay Leno’s show.

“I did refuse any makeup,” he says. “Someone wanted to put powder on me and I said, ‘Are you nuts? I’m a barbarian.’”

You sound a little upset.  What irks Conan?

I just talked to some of the foreign press, and they thought the movie was violent. It’s “Conan”! People know they’re going to watch “Conan” and not “The Prince of Persia.” Conan is supposed to kick ass. I think this movie does a great job of reinventing a classic. Tonight, I’m going to go watch an early screening of it with a bunch of my buddies and then go drink some beers. I know they’ll love the action in the movie, and I’m not worried about what they think of me as an actor. They know I’m an idiot.

How were you cast?

I was cast because I do “Game of Thrones” and the film had a mutual casting director who knew my work. He said, “This kid is our new Conan.” Actually, being cast as Conan wasn’t a nail-biting thing. Getting the HBO series was the nail-biter because I had to wait to find out, plus they didn’t want to cast out of America. It was seven months of ups and downs. With “Conan,” I was equally thrilled because it was a truly iconic role and a departure from who I am. Plus, it is iconic, so I had a feeling of, “Let me show you what I can do with it.”

3 Any worries that audiences  will be comparing you to Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Of course, but then again, Sean Connery and Daniel Craig are both James Bond and both phenomenal. We saw Jack Nicholson do the Joker in “Batman” and thought no one else could do it. Then Heath Ledger came along and won an Oscar for it. It’s apples and pears or peaches and cream. The point is that it’s a new day for Conan. … When I started this movie, I watched the first Conan movie and Arnold did a great job, but it’s 30 years later. It’s actually shocking that no one redid Conan before now. … [Schwarzenegger] saw the movie and passed on a message that I did a good job. That was fantastic to hear.

Did you bulk up for the role?

I did a lot of weight training to transform my body. I also learned Asian movement because I have to wield that big sword. Basically, I wanted to do that with the gracefulness of a cat. I even studied big cats and the way they walk and hunt. In the end, I put on about 35 pounds for both “Conan” and “Thrones.” It was fun to put on just weight for “Thrones.” I ate pizza and drank Guinness. On “Conan,” I had to put on muscle, which was tough. I had to eat lean protein and keep a crazy level of training up.

Did you come away with any good injury stories?

Oh, I almost died on the horse a few times. Once, the horse’s feet went out underneath him and I slid off his neck. When the horse fell, his butt almost crushed me but missed me by a narrow margin. I was also bucked off and broke a rib. You heard about my broken nose. Don’t tell my wife. There were also mornings where I had to crawl out of bed because my body was hurting so bad. So, I’d just put some Epsom salts in my tub and sit there. Then I’d go back to the set and do a few more stunts, knowing that if something really happened to me, I’d be … word deleted.

TR3S has some soundbytes from Rose McGowan & Rachel Nichols on the women (and men) of Conan:

Who says the new Conan the Barbarian movie is just for guys? Despite plenty of sword fights, explosions, and bone-crunching stunts, this latest theatrical reboot also includes some pretty dynamic female characters. Star Trek’s Rachel Nichols plays Tamara, a headstrong love interest for the Cimmerian warrior, and Rose McGowan portrays Marique, an evil witch. Both actresses spoke exclusively to Tr3s about their roles at a recent Conan press conference.

“It was fun being able to play a witch,” McGowan explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever played a character that was so unconstrained. Normally you’re asked to pull back with a character, but not here. We had a lot of fun with it.”

Interestingly Rose has played a witchy woman before, back in the early 2000′s, when she had a starring role on the cult series, Charmed. But for Conan, she’s exploring much darker territory. Her character uses magic for pure evil and comes with her own very unique look.

“I think Marique is kind of amazing looking,” McGowan said. “But it took six hours in the makeup chair to get that way.”

Rachel, on the other hand, plays the lady heroine of the film and a very sexy love interest for Conan. When asked about her chemistry with star Jason Momoa, Nichols had nothing but praise.

“I loved working with Jason,” she said. “There’s something about him. He’s a huge presence. He’s a big guy and he’s got that booming voice, but there’s also something really sweet about him.”

Don’t worry fellas, this revamped Barbarian is anything but soft. Throughout the film, Jason racks up quite a body count with some insanely intense action sequences (as Rose can attest).

“This movie has amazing swordplay,” McGowan said. “Seeing Jason and [villain] Stephen Lang go toe-to-toe was amazing. It was very impressive.”

Rachel was quick to chime in on the topic too, making sure that fans knew the women in the film are just as capable of swinging a blade as the boys. When speaking about her character Tamara, she said,

“Tamara definitely gives Conan attitude. There’s some hostility in their relationship. She is not the typical damsel in distress. I really like the modern idea of ‘I don’t need Conan to save me, I can save myself’.”

You can see just how “epic” Rose, Rachel, and Jason’s scenes get when Conan the Barbarian arrives in theaters next Friday.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette has an article about two local entertainment lawyers who were tied into the upcoming film, which has a lot of fascinating information about the rights situation and eventual production of the new Conan film:

NORTHAMPTON – Bringing a barbarian to the big screen takes a lot of civilized work behind the scenes. Just ask Northampton entertainment lawyer Frederick Fierst and his son, Daniel Fierst.

Both are in Los Angeles today for the red carpet premiere of the new “Conan the Barbarian” 3D movie. The elder Fierst, 63, is credited as an executive producer on the film for his role transferring the Conan franchise to new owners. The film opens worldwide Aug. 19.

California-based Paradox Entertainment Inc. acquired Conan and other intellectual property of author Robert E. Howard in 2003 for about $6 million, Fierst said.

Daniel Fierst, 28, worked for Paradox for three years as its president’s personal assistant. A 2002 Northampton High School graduate, he got to see the Conan reboot in its early stages, arranging meetings between Paradox and the relatively unknown production company that made the movie, Millennium Films.

“Everybody in Hollywood thought we were crazy for going with Millennium rather than one of the major studios,” Frederick Fierst said. “But we were convinced they were going to make the film instead of (sending it to) development hell.”

Paradox has been the licensing authority for other Conan commodities, including a comic book series and an online game, for years. But until 2007 all the Conan film rights belonged to Warner Brothers.

Fierst said the studio never followed through with a feature, and so when its claim lapsed, Paradox took it over.

The film is directed by Marcus Nispel, who is known for remakes of “Friday the 13th” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” as well as documentaries on musicians including Janet Jackson and George Michael.

In the title role is the heavy-browed Jason Momoa, who played another barbarian in the recent HBO miniseries “A Game of Thrones,” and also starred in the final season of “Baywatch.”

Daniel Fierst said Paradox wanted a “Conan” that was true to Howard’s stories from pulp magazines of the 1930s. He said the Conan played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 1982 film was a “hodgepodge bastardization,” borrowing a villain from a different Howard series, “Kull of Atlantis,” and making the hero a slave.

“That was outrageous to fanboys,” Daniel Fierst said. “They’d say Conan would die before he became a slave.”

Indeed, in a trailer for the new film, Momoa’s Conan says, “No man should live in chains.”

Frederick Fierst said Paradox went out of its way to make peace with Conan purists, donating to the fan-run Robert E. Howard Foundation. He said part of the new movie was screened at the group’s recent convention in Texas, and it was well received.

Last summer Frederick Fierst traveled to Bulgaria to see some of the filming. He said many of the special effects shots were done in a former Soviet propaganda studio, and there was also location shots around the country, including one in a gigantic cave where the movie’s climactic final scene takes place.

A partner at Fierst, Pucci & Kane on Gothic Street, Frederick Fierst formerly represented Mirage Studios, which sold the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise to Viacom in 2009 for $60 million. He said Nickelodeon is now developing a new Turtles animated series.

Acquiring the Howard universe involved a lot of trademark and copyright work, in which Fierst said he was helped by two associates at his firm, Amanda Schreyer and Hun Ohm, and paralegal Diane Kleber.

The New York Times has an interview with Stephen Lang about his career, touching upon his time as Khalar Zym in Conan, and with a quote from Marcus Nispel:

THE news that “Conan the Barbarian” was being screened for journalists in New York brought a mischievous grin from the ferocious warlord Khalar Zym, a k a Stephen Lang. “Do I own it?” he asked. “It’s an innocent question. I’d like to think I could do a romantic comedy, you know? But villains are a necessity. Without them, what’s your hero got?”

Mr. Lang is quick to joke. (“He’s so warm and inspiring and infectious,” he said of one director. “Not in a diseased way. In an enthusiasm way.”) But he combines charm with discipline. As Mr. Nispel put it,  “I wasn’t aware how extensive his theater background was, but doing ‘Conan’ is theatrical. It’s swords and sorcery, and even in the world of such theatrics there has to be an authenticity. You have to be able to deliver those kinds of lines and be believable. A lot of people just can’t.”

Inhabiting the author Robert Howard’s hallucinatory, hyperviolent world of Hyboria couldn’t have been further from Mr. Lang’s “White Irish Drinkers” character, an alcoholic laborer and his family’s own domestic terrorist.

(“Hallucinatory”?)

Here’s an unexpected interview, a 26 minute(!) chat with Alina Puscau, who talks about her experiences, including (of course) Conan:

Anyway, the next batch of videos are interviews with TalkingPicturesTV. First off, Jason Momoa, where he talks about picking nude Bulgarian women, bringing Howard’s prose to screen, and keeping Conan’s humanity:

We also have an interview with Rachel Nichols (pictured above in a backless dress, undoubtedly a remarkable feat of engineering), and sadly, though this is her first sex scene in a film, we find she had stunt boobs (hand-picked by Jason Momoa himself), so all those who are nothing short of obsessed with seeing more of Rachel may be disappointed. Those concerned about spoilers should probably miss this one, though, since Rachel gives away the ending(!):

The rule of three dictates a final interview, and it’s with Rose McGowan:

In more general Robert E. Howard news, the creator of Conan got into 68th place in NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels list. Since these lists are inevitably popularity-based, I’m taking it as a great sign that Howard’s on the list at all, rather than worrying about placement. One can only hope that the new film will boost REH’s popularity, and that we’ll be seeing him talked about a lot more, and in favourable terms.

There is still quite a bit of confusion about the upcoming Conan the Barbarian film. Some think it’s a remake of the 1982 film; others think it’s a sequel or re-imagining of it; still others have wildly different expectations and myriad misunderstandings of the character, his creation, and the film itself.

Well, I figured it’s time to put everything of importance into a short as possible, easy-to-read, plain English document for those who don’t know Conan. Think of this as a primer for anyone not closely versed in Conan, the Hyborian Age, or Robert E. Howard, whose only experience of Conan may be a late night talk-show host or a plucky little detective anime.

But they can’t remake Conan the Barbarian! Arnold was Conan! Milius was a Genius! This is an outrage!

A great man once said “Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it’s nothing.”

With that in mind, let me be perfectly blunt: if your only experience of Conan is previous adaptations, then you are not entitled to an opinion on the 2011 film’s fidelity to the Conan character. You can judge it on its own cinematic merits, as a moviegoing experience, or whatever. But without research, without background, without understanding, your opinion is nothing. If something in the 2011 film is different from something in the 1982 film, that does not make it unfaithful to the Conan character. Full stop. End of. Fin.

I’m not saying you have to read all of Robert E. Howard’s stories before going to see the film (though that would be awesome), I’m just saying you really should know that Conan existed for 50 years before 1982. I have spent too much time trying to explain to people that Conan existed for 20 years before Arnold Schwarzenegger was even born to have much patience left, and in this age of the internet, there is no excuse for ignorance. And this particular sort of ignorance is annoying, because it is so easily remedied with a simple, 5-second Google or Wikipedia search.

With that out of the way, onward.

This is not a remake.

Conan the Barbarian was created in 1932 by Robert E. Howard, a visionary Texan author who wrote over 300 short stories and 800 poems, most of which were written over the span of a mere 10 years. Howard wrote 20 short stories and one novel featuring Conan, and along with J.R.R. Tolkien and others, was vital in the creation of the modern fantasy genre.

“Conan the Barbarian” as a phrase started long before the 1982 film, and was used for a number of Conan titles. Though Howard never used the phrase, it has been in popular use since the 1930s by Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, where the Conan stories were first published. “Conan the Barbarian” was also the title of a collection of stories published by Gnome Press in 1954, and the title of the phenomenally popular Marvel comic series, which ran uninterrupted in 275 issues for 23 years, from 1970 to 1993. A more mature black-and-white title, “The Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian,” followed in 1974: it too was a runaway success, running for 235 issues over 21 years. So, even though the 1982 film had the title “Conan the Barbarian,” it was far from the first, and far from the only use of that phrase as the title.

The upcoming film has very little to do with the 1982 film. Here are a list of similarities:

• A young Cimmerian named Conan is our protagonist
• His father is a blacksmith
• His village is attacked by a band of raiders
• His father is killed
• The raider’s leader takes his father’s sword
• Conan eventually resolves to avenge his father’s death and village’s slaughter
• Conan grows strong and muscular as an adult, and becomes a deadly thief and dangerous warrior

So far, that sounds pretty similar to the film… for the first 15 minutes. After that, there’s practically nothing in common: young Conan is not enslaved and taken north; he is not set to work on a wheel for 20 years; he is not sold and forced into pit fighting for his life; he does not train in the far east in the arts of war; absolutely none of the story following Conan’s early life ever occurs. Thulsa Doom, Subotai, Valeria, King Osric, the Princess, the Wizard, Rexor, Thorgrim – in fact, every character apart from Conan’s parents – are absent in the upcoming film, just as they were absent from the original stories. The Wheel of Pain, the Atlantean crypt, the Tower of the Serpent, the Mountain of Power, the Mounds of the Dead – all nowhere to be seen.

Considering none of the above happens in any of Robert E. Howard’s stories in the first place, it’s plausible that a new Conan story featuring his origins could have practically nothing in common with the 1982 film.What little that does come from the stories tends to be mere names: Cimmeria, Zamora, Ophir, Khitai, Aquilonia, Nemedia, Koth, Stygia, and Hyrkania are locations from Howard’s works, and some episodes are loosely inspired by similar events on the stories. It is most assuredly not a few Conan tales “stitched together,” as those scenes account for little more than 10 minutes of the entire film.

For more information on the differences between Howard’s work and the 1982 film, see the following links:

• Conan and the Issue of the Origin Story
• The Filmgoer’s Guide to Conan the Barbarian (1982)
• Conan the Barbarian (2011): Remake, Reboot, or Reimagining?

This is not an adaptation of a Robert E. Howard story.

Although the filmmakers stress their goal to create a film as faithful to Howard’s work as possible, the story is not based on any of Robert E. Howard’s tales, and is completely original to the film. The opening act set during Conan’s childhood, centred around a plot for revenge, is completely absent from any of Howard’s stories. Every character in the film apart from Conan – Khalar Zym, Tamara, Marique, Artus, Ela-Shan, Ukafa, Akhoun, Lucius – is an invention of the filmmakers. Similarly, none of the events in the film following Conan’s youth are related in any story by Howard, or any later author for that matter. As such, you won’t find a Robert E. Howard story that mentions the Mask of Acheron, the Monastery, Khor Khala, Skull Rock, the Hornet, or the vast majority of the characters, settings and events in this film.

As with the 1982 film, what little that does come from the stories tends to be mere names: Cimmeria, Acheron, Asgalun, Shahpur, Zingara, and Hyrkania are locations from Howard’s works, though Howard doesn’t set any stories in those places. Conan obviously had a father, but aside from the fact that he was a blacksmith, nothing is known of him or his fate; similarly, we know Conan was born on a battlefield during a skirmish between his tribe and a band of invading Vanir, but nothing else is known of Conan’s mother.

Although Jason Momoa and Leo Howard may act more like Conan and his younger self respectively than their 1982 predecessors, the events that happen to them in the film don’t give any more insight into the personal history of Howard’s Conan than the previous film save in the most general ways. Certainly none of the stories are “spoiled” in the film, so you can enjoy them without having plot twists revealed ahead of time. In short, none of the events you see in this film will spoil any of Howard’s stories, for none of the events in those stories are in the film.

A full “Filmgoer’s Guide to Conan the Barbarian (2011)” looking at the divergences and allusions to Howard’s work will be published in due course.

Conan is not Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Many of the elements people only familiar with the 1982 film associate with Conan are, in fact, not related to Conan at all. For instance, the idea of Conan being pseudo-Germanic or Austrian has nothing to do with the original character, and entirely due to the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger had the thickest Austrian accent in cinematic history. While the visual image of Conan being preposterously muscular was popularised by the illustrations and comics, the actual descriptions of Conan do not necessarily mean someone with a Mr Olympia physique: just someone suitably large and muscular enough to be an intimidating, imposing warrior, but without being so bulky as to reduce his movement to a crawl.

While some criticize Jason Momoa for not resembling Conan as closely as Schwarzenegger, in fact, he has far more of the visual cues Howard described. Jason Momoa may not have the blue eyes of Howard’s Conan, but he certainly has the scars, dark hair, hairy chest, sinister countenance, and bronze skin – all missing in Arnold’s Conan.

Some may have the idea that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only person who can play Conan, which is like saying no-one but Johnny Weissmuller can play Tarzan, or no-one but Basil Rathbone can play Sherlock Holmes, or no-one but Bela Lugosi can play Dracula. Conan, like those other iconic characters, is bigger than any one actor: he’s a legend with many different visual interpretations, and so there’s more than enough room for many actors. The difference is that no-one else has played Conan on the big screen in 27 years, until Jason Momoa came along, giving rise to a popular belief that only Arnold can play him. Yet how can anyone truly tell if Arnold is “the only one” who could play Conan, when there’s no one else to with whom to compare?

Conan is not a dimwitted, clumsy brute.

Far from the popular cultural stereotype of the brawn-over-brain, monosyllabic thug, Howard’s Conan is intelligent, perceptive, insightful and surprisingly complex. Howard’s Conan listened in to philosophical debates among Zamorian scholars, spent weeks among the wise men of the Pelishti, and learned much of Hyborian Age religion, philosophy, history and folklore in his travels; he approached and solved problems with his mind as often as with his muscles; his personality and attitudes are more complex than the brooding, vengeance-obsessed former slave.

It should be noted that the 1982 film’s Conan is not unintelligent either, having read philosophy and poetry, and learning battle strategy and tactics: he was a man of few words who let his actions speak for themselves. Unfortunately, the depiction of the character in Conan the Destroyer utterly, well, destroyed that aspect in the public eye for decades, as the man who managed to wipe out a force of over twenty armed horsemen with only his wits and two allies was reduced to an idiot who could not count to six. This was exacerbated in the cartoon and live-action series, where he was portrayed as a gentle giant of very little brain.

Conan was not stupid: in a savage world like the Hyborian Age, you could not afford to be stupid. If you had no wits, you’d be at best a slave, and at worst dead.

Conan is not “talking too much”

A barbarian is not the same as a caveman.

Schwarzenegger’s Conan didn’t talk much not because Conan was a near-mute, monosyllabic stoic, but because his accent was near-impenetrable in the early 1980s. Originally, it was Schwarzenegger who was going to narrate the film, not Mako’s Wizard: this was changed when concerns arose about the clarity of Schwarzenegger’s diction, which had already been addressed in Hercules in New York through dubbing.

While no chatterbox, Robert E. Howard’s Conan was a lot more verbose and eloquent. Here’s an example of one of his more lengthy monologues:

“Compensation! The price of infamy and treachery! I am a barbarian, so I shall sell my kingdom and its people for life and your filthy gold? Ha! How did you come to your crown, you and that black-faced pig beside you? Your fathers did the fighting and the suffering, and handed their crowns to you on golden platters. What you inherited without lifting a finger – except to poison a few brothers – I fought for.

“You sit on satin and guzzle wine the people sweat for, and talk of divine rights of sovereignty – bah! I climbed out of the abyss of naked barbarism to the throne and in that climb I spilt my blood as freely as I spilt that of others. If either of us has the right to rule men, by Crom, it is I! How have you proved yourselves my superiors?

“I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you – one who traced his genealogy for a thousand years. The land was torn with the wars of the barons, and the people cried out under oppression and taxation. Today no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and the taxes of the people are lighter than anywhere else in the world.

“What of you? Your brother, Amalrus, holds the eastern half of your kingdom, and defies you. And you, Strabonus, your soldiers are even now besieging castles of a dozen or more rebellious barons. The people of both your kingdoms are crushed into the earth by tyrannous taxes and levies. And you would loot mine – ha! Free my hands and I’ll varnish this floor with your brains!”

Try to imagine 1982 Arnie saying all that. Even so, Conan spoke around 390 words in Conan the Barbarian, so people may be viewing the film with hazy memories.

Conan is being pronounced correctly.

Robert E. Howard’s pronunciation of Conan, according to his girlfriend Novalyne Price, was confirmed through Howard scholar Rusty Burke:

I pronounce it KOn’n (imagining that the apostrophe represents the neutral vowel sound, and the O is long) — much the way Conan O’Brien pronounces his name, or that Brits pronounce Arthur Conan Doyle’s middle name. I interviewed Novalyne Ellis, Howard’s old girlfriend, and she was very insistent upon the point that this was how Bob had pronounced the name. She said Bob’s old buddy Clyde Smith had complained to her about people pronouncing the name “Ko-Nan.”

In other words, Conan is pronounced the way anyone else pronounces the name. The 1982 film’s pronunciation being different is an anomaly, and the pronunciation in the upcoming film is most certainly not “incorrect.” Here’s a pronunciation guide for Arthur Conan Doyle for those still having trouble.

Jason Momoa is not puny.

At the time of filming, Jason Momoa stood at 6’5″, and weight 235lbs. Arnold Schwarzenegger was reported to be 6’2,” and around the same weight during filming. Jason Momoa is thus taller, and of comparable weight to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Crucially, Jason Momoa is far more agile and quick than Arnold, and is far more proficient in fight choreography.

Jason Momoa is not black.

Jason Momoa is of mixed ethnicity: his father is Native Hawaiian, his mother Native American-Irish-German. That makes him around a third white. However, his actual ethnicity for the role of Conan is irrelevant, as long as he looks sufficiently close to the description of Howard’s Conan. According to Howard, the Cimmerians were the direct ancestors of the Irish and Scottish Gaels, and his descriptions match those of the “Black Irish” phenotype: so, Jason Momoa has to look sufficiently “Irish” or “Scottish.” When compared to actors like Sean Connery, Gabriel Byrne or Daniel Day Lewis, Momoa isn’t really that far off.

To avoid disappointment, do not expect any of the following:

• Basil Poledouris’ themes
• Thulsa Doom
• The Wheel of Pain
• Conan the Gladiator
• “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.”
• The witch
• The Atlantean crypt & sword
• Subotai
• Conan punching a camel, horse, or any such mounted animal
• Valeria
• The wizard
• Conan praying to Crom
• Conan saying “Crom” at all
• Rose McGowan as Red Sonja
• Red Sonja appearing at all
• Giant snakes
• Just about anything you remember from the 1982 film beyond Conan cutting dudes up

Yes, the world really could do with a new Conan movie.

Some would say that Conan the Barbarian was fine on its own. Others think Milius & Schwarzenegger should finish off their trilogy with Conan becoming King, and leave it at that. Some might then think “does the world really need another Conan movie”? To which I would respond: yes, yes it does.

Think of the countless Dracula, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot, the Three Musketeers, Zorro, and Tarzan films which have come out over the years: think how those characters are just so iconic that they seem ideal for franchises. Nobody seems to be sick of them: the most recent Sherlock Holmes film was a big hit at the box office. Same for Zorro and Bond. Conan is one of those icons. There is no creative reason why there can’t be scores of films based around the character: the Howard stories alone would provide material for a dozen adaptations, be they full adaptations, expansions of shorter tales, or cobbled-together anthologies. And then, the sheer breadth of the Hyborian Age means that any number of milieus are opened up, and can rove around as audiences’ tastes change.

Say pirates are big one decade. Well, do some adventures where Conan’s a Black Corsair, Red Brother, or Freebooter: cash in on the buccaneer fad while still being a Conan movie. Or say fantastical adventures in mysterious jungle locales are in vogue; just send Conan to the Golden Kingdoms of the Himelians, or the Black Kingdoms of Kush. Maybe cynical, gritty, sombre war stories come back in fashion: go back to Conan’s period as a red-handed mercenary, or border-runner along the Pictish Wilderness. It could be full of complex byzantine politics and conspiracies playing against each other, or simple tales of humanity against monsters, evil, nature or death. There are just so many places one could take Conan – the exotic east, the colonial west, the icebound north, the steamy south, the high seas, the treacherous mountains, the burning deserts – that there really is very little one can’t do with a Conan film. That just makes it even more astounding that there have only been two Conan films in almost 80 years of the character’s existence.

I hope this post has been of help, and that people will go into Conan the Barbarian hopefully more informed.

I’m awfully late to the party on this one, but there’s still just under a week left, so all you artists out there get your pencils, pens, paints, and graphic tablets ready for Empire’s big competition!

Hi mash-up peeps,

We’re partnered with Lionsgate to give you the chance to design an official, studio-endorsed poster for Conan. The winning entry will be picked by a member of the movie’s cast and crew – possibly even Jason Momoa himself – and displayed pride of place at next month’s Big Screen.

All you have to do is head over here for Conan assets/logo/pics, design something awesome in one-sheet format and post it here by Friday, August 5.

Feel free to make it as much (or as little) Robert Howard/Frank Frazetta inspired as you like, just make sure it’s high-res as the poster will be printed 27×40. Probably best to avoid puns this time, as much as we’d like to see ‘Conan For All Seasons’ or ‘Barbarian Of Green Gables’.

Go forth and bring it!

Oh boy. I really hope there’s some speedy artist out there who wants to give Conan the Esteban Marato, Drew Strewzan or John Alvin treatment. Maybe go with some old-school stuff in the style of Bill Gold, Frank McCarthy or Howard Terpning, or try something unusual like Saul Bass. And, of course, lest we forget Frank Frazetta did movie posters too?

There have already been some impressive pictures, which I’ve put after the break, but my money’s on this one:

Masterpiece.

More can be found at the forum thread. Anyone wanting high resolution images can find them at Lionsgate’s Publicity website, as well as a few high resolution shots Conan Movie Blog’s found over the internet here.

Get crackin’!

Thanks to sweetre15, Sean Hood has graciously answered questions from the users at the Robert E. Howard Forums regarding the upcoming film at his personal website. For expediency, I’ll copy it here.

The fans on the Conan.com forum asked me a number of questions about the upcoming movie Conan The Barbarian 3D. Here are my answers:

1. I know that you know the original stories and the Conan character as good as any. Which part of the script would you have loved to change but weren’t allowed/able to because whatever reason? And what would you have changed it to?

When I started the bulk of my work on the film, there were only two weeks until shooting was scheduled to begin. Sets were already built, characters were cast, stunts were choreographed, and special effects were pre-visualized. Although a lot of scene, story and character elements ultimately changed, I had to work within some very tight parameters under intense pressure to deliver pages quickly. Production rewrites are sometimes described as “changing the wheels on a moving car.”

To get an idea of what kind of Conan film I’d make if it were just me writing for myself, check out this answer/link:

What are the best Conan the Barbarian stories written by Robert E Howard and which story would be the best to adapt as a motion picture?

It’s a very lengthy piece, around 3,000 words and with 26 questions overall. The click shall set you free.

2. There has been a ton of disputes here (Conan The Movie Blog) about the look of Conan in the 2011 movie and I was wondering why he doesn’t have the blue eyes that R. E. Howard gave him? It just seems like that was the one main missing feature that really stood out.
It was my understanding that Conan was going to have blue eyes, and yes I think he should have had blue eyes. Ultimately, I heard that there were problems with both the blue contacts and the digital effect changing Momoa’s eye color. I don’t really know anything more about the technical details.

3. How many humans does Conan slay in the film?
More than John J. Rambo kills in Rambo 4.*

4. How many monsters does Conan slay in the film?
Only a few, but they are fierce, Lovecraftian nightmares.

5. How many women does Conan kiss in the film?
More than Khal Drogo does in Game of Thrones… and yes, Conan does a lot more than kiss them.

6. Have you been asked to develop ideas for a future Conan sequel?
I have NOT yet been asked to write a future Conan film. But you can get an idea of the kind of movie I’d like to write by following the link to question #1.

7. How much of the Donelly/Oppenheimer story is left on the final screenplay?
About 50%, and their early drafts laid the bedrock for the story and characterizations. Their names appear before mine in the credits because the WGA determined that their contribution ultimately was larger than mine, and I agree.

8. How much of the Andrew Lobel draft is left on the final screenplay?
According to the WGA arbitration not enough to get credit on the film, but a number of key lines (“How many names do I need?”), memorable locations, and general concepts of Andrew’s remain in the final shooting script. Lobel is a talented and humorous young writer and you will hear more from him.

9. How many of the “new” elements of the script are from Marcus or the producers and how many are your own invention?
Filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and I there were a lot of people – from producers to studio executives to actors to the director himself – who were giving notes and making suggestions. Many of the elements of the action/fight scenes were choreographed by stunt coordinator David Leitch before I even got there. The idea for the climactic moment on a bridge came from Marcus Nispel. I also worked very closely with producer Boaz Davidson.
However, the writer must ultimately take responsibility for everything that goes down on the page, and since many of the “notes” I was getting from all the different sources were wildly contradictory, I had to trust my own instincts, and write what I believed was best (given the realities of shooting and limitations of what had already been set in stone.)
I would say that most of the “new” elements on the pages of the shooting script did originate from me. However, the film you will see on screen is definitely Marcus Nispel’s.

10. This is your first “Big Budget” movie. The responsibility is difficult to handle?
The movie had an estimated budget of some 80 million dollars, so yes, it is by far the largest I have ever worked on as a writer (although as a prop guy and set dresser I worked on some big ones like Fight Club and True Lies). The pressure of writing while shooting was in progress was intense, but it was also exhilarating.

11. What is your favorite Conan story? Why?
My sentimental favorite is Red Nails, because that was the first one I ever read as an 11-year-old boy. (You can read more about that by following the link from question #1.)

12. What is, for you, the most important part of Conan’s psyche? What are his traits, virtues and ideals?
I tried my best to make sure that in the shooting script, Conan’s character reflected the vision of REH. In my opinion, Conan has few “ideals.” While he shows fierce loyalty to friends, a hatred for the practice of slavery, a respect for female warriors, and a disdain for “civilization,” he is not driven by a “higher purpose.” I would call him “amoral” in that he is not concerned with traditional issues right and wrong.
As far as his virtues, unlike some heroes who “learn a lesson” or “grow” in the course of a story, Conan is compelling precisely because – despite enormous danger and pressure – he stubbornly refuses to change. So his virtues are strength, stamina, and cunning. He is after all a thief, a pirate and a slayer.

Other words I’d use to describe his traits are:

- Charismatic and lusty. He likes drink heavily and carry off naked, eager slavegirls.
- Brutal and a bit bloodthirsty. He loves “the feasting of swords!”
- Dark and brooding. He’s prone to deep melancholy.

Ultimately, I think that Conan, as he appears in the Robert E. Howard stories and in the new movie, lives in the moment. This is why you hear him say, in the trailer, “I live, I love, I slay. I am content.”

13. What part of the hyborian world do you find more interesting?
Robert E. Howard was a history buff, and enjoyed writing historical fiction. What I enjoy about the Hyborian age is that every race, every country, every conflict and every individual story contains a shadowy reflection of our own history. For example, in Red Nails, we have the idea that civilizations, in their corrupt mismanagement and feuding over precious natural resources, carry the seeds of their own destruction. That’s an idea I see echoed in books like Guns, Germs and Steel.

14. It seems that there are a lot of Lovecraft elements in the representation of Acheron. Why did you take that approach? Did you include any further references to the “mythos”?
I didn’t refer to Lovecraft directly, but stories like Rats in the Walls were favorites of mine growing up, so there may have been some influence in the depiction of Acheron and in monsters like The Dweller.

15. What was the most difficult scene to write and which was the most fun?
The most difficult sequence involved the Artus’s pirate ship and the battle at sea. The sequence changed many times and many elements were ultimately cut. It also came about two thirds of the way through the second act, a notoriously tricky place in any script, where a story can easily drag.
The most fun scenes to write involved Khalar and Marique, because I was able to explore their twisted relationship. They are each so narcissistic and deliciously perverse.

16. Whiat was your approach to the villain’s motivations and personality? Why you took that approach?
When writing a villain, even one as sadistic and brutal as Khalar Zym, it is important to give him an authentic and almost sympathetic motivation. Khalar doesn’t see himself as a villain. He thinks he is avenging a horrific murder, and resurrecting the woman he loves. Even if it means torturing and slaughtering thousands of people, he feels he is perfectly justified.
Likewise with Marique: underneath the sadistic, perverse sorceress is a little girl who just wants daddy’s attention.

17. What was your approach to the old-fashioned dialogue of the hyborian age?
Distillation. I wanted the dialogue to have that Hyborian age flavor, but there is no time in an action film the long, portentous speeches and grim histories recounted in Howard’s dialogue. I did my best to lift actual lines from his stories and work them into the film.

18. How important was being faithful to Howard’s canon to you?
Conan The Barbarian 3D is not a direct adaptation of a specific REH story, but I took great care making sure that both the Conan character and details of the Hyborian age were true to Howard’s vision… at least in the script. Two of the producers Fred Malberg and Dan Rosenfeld, both of whom are die-hard Howard fans, were deeply involved in the actual shooting. Each would send me volumes of notes every week to make sure that every detail fit with “the Howard cannon.” Fred himself was present on set to be sure that the cities, tribes, costumes and behavior were in tune with the source material.

19. How important was being faithful to Howard’s main theme (barbarism vs civilization) to you?
It is a major element in the conflict/relationship between Conan and Tamara. I gave the character Artus a short speech describing Conan’s disdain for the “civilized world.”

20.Why does a character shown in the trailer refer to the world as “Hyboria”? You know the Hyborians are a racial stock, right? It’s akin to saying “Europeans”. We don’t refer to the world as Europe or Europa or Europia. Why would you have a character refer to Conan’s world as “Hyboria”?
It’s true that REH never used the word “Hyboria” to describe the world, but it’s become quite common in current video games, comic books, and maps made of the Hyborian Age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysagon_Hyboria_1024.jpg

When characters refer to “Hyboria,” they are referring to the continent dominated by Hyborian peoples during the Hyborean age. It’s meant in the same way Asians might refer to Asia, Africans might refer to Africa, or REH’s own Atlanteans might have referred to the continent of Atlantis. It doesn’t necessarily refer to the entire globe, just to the “civilized world” of Hyborian nations that dominate that particular continent at that time.
Would the Picts or the Cimmerians or Stygians have a problem with the entire continent being named after the Hyborians? Yes, they probably would, just as Native Americans probably wonder why the two continents they settled 14,000 years ago are named after Amerigo Vespucci.

21. Now that Fassir is telling Tamara that she is destined to meet Conan, how will Mitras’s request to Yasmela be handled if Black Colossus ever gets translated to film?
In Black Colossus, queen Yasmela prays to Mitra, and she is told to go out into the streets and hand over the defense of her kingdom (that is being attacked by a 3000 year old sorcerer) to the first man she meets. This turns out to be Conan, who already has a position in her army but is then promoted. These circumstances are quite different from those in the film, so I see no reason why a future adaptation couldn’t remain faithful to Black Colossus.

22. Why do they feel so at liberty with a character that is not their own, to make fairly egregious changes that in actuality do not really advance the plot or story, nor enhance the original character, but speak rather to the perceptions they have of their audience?
My ten-year-old daughter asked me the same question after we saw the most recent Harry Potter film. She’s a fanatic for the books, and the simplification of the climactic battle between Harry and Voldemort didn’t sit well with her.
The question contains two assumptions that make it hard to answer.
One assumption is that all changes to a character that first appeared in a book or graphic novel are always unwarranted and “egregious.” That judgment really depends on the movie. I don’t think Nolan/Leger’s and reinvention of the Joker was egregious, even though it was far different than Bob Kane’s original character. Would many people want to see a James Bond movie that was perfectly faithful to Ian Flemming?
The other is assumption is that there is a particular person or persons who arrogantly decide that that “they” can do better than a famous author like REH.
To whom does “they” refer? There are they studio, production company executives who work for years, and in the case of Conan decades, to get a movie greenlit. “They” often are working under the thumbs of larger corporations who are only concerned with the bottom line. If an 80 million dollar film flops, it can bankrupt entire companies, ruin careers, and make stock values to plummet.
“They” could also refer to distributors, marketers, DVD manufacturers, cinematographers, actors, editors, production designers and other collaborators whose livelihood depends on the success of the movie.
I imagine that you are referring specifically to decisions made by the director, Marcus Nispel, and the screenwriters on Conan, and that you hate the changes you imagine we made to REH’s Conan. All I can tell you, is that whole hordes of people weigh in on these decisions, that none of us set out to make a bad movie, that none of us think we are somehow “better” than REH, but that yes, ultimately the tastes of a wide audience come into play when making a Hollywood movie.
Lastly, if anyone on Conan.com has 80 million dollars to spend on a faithfully adapted Conan film, please, PLEASE contact me. I would be more than happy to write a faithful adaptation for you, and I work for cheap. J

Does the success of such movies and works as LotR, the upcoming Hobbit, Harry Potter, even Twilight and True Grit, and now Game of Thrones inform their decisions at all, and if not, why don’t they?
Anything that is successful will affect “their” decisions, whoever that nefarious and mysterious pronoun refers to. I happen to think that the best and most sophisticated medium for adapting novels is television. I loved Game of Thrones. With lower budgets, better actors and writers, and 10-13 hours to work with, TV series just do the best job of it.
Did anyone, at any point, advocate for a direct adaptation?
The producers at Paradox Entertainment, Fred Malberg in particular, have always advocated for direct adaptations, and will continue to do so for future films.
And if they still think they can improve on the original, why then do they not just take their own story and create their own character?
I myself am an advocate for original screenplays, but because a fantasy film costs between 50-250 million, studios are only willing to risk the money on characters and stories that audiences are already familiar with – so-called “pre-branded” material.
This isn’t a “lack of originality” so much as it’s an investment strategy. Audiences flock to “Spiderman” and “Batman” and other big brand names. If mass audiences reliably went to see “original” films, that’s what the people holding the purse strings would invest in. But at the moment, people flock to Transformers, so that’s what they get.
But believe me… if by “they” you mean writers and directors, we would all rather be doing something original – conceived and executed for the silver screen.

23. Why haven’t they been more engaged with the crombots?
Again, I’m not sure who you mean by “they.” I myself have done my best to engage with REH fans, even when they are critical, because I think the discussion can help make for better REH inspired films in the future.

24. I noted how similar the Picts in the film are to their depictions by the Keegans and Manchess in the Del Reys, not to mention how they’re depicted in the Conan roll playing game (1st edition). Other people have noted the simularities the look of the film has to the Age of Conan video game, which I really can’t comment on because I haven’t played it. Is this mere conicidence, or is a part of a greater effort on the part of CPI to make Conan’s world look uniform across several forms of media?
That’s really a question for Fred Malmberg and Paradox entertainment, who oversee the development of REH based media.

25. If a person’s introduction to the character is the 82 film, the original stories are a shock to them because the character is so different than how he’s depicted on film. Will people who are led to the original stories by thenew film have a similar reaction, or do you feel that the transition will be more seamless this time? Can someone read The Pheonix on the Sword and imagine Momoa in the role with no cognitive dissonance on their part?
Yes. I believe that the new Conan film will bring a whole new generation of readers to REH’s stories. Everyone who reads a book may have a different vision of what the character looks like, but Momoa is the best we’ve had yet.

26. From what I know about the script, there is a gap in time between the destruction of Conan’s village and when Momoa emeges onscreen as a full grown adult, where he apparently has several adventures already under his belt. Without giving too many plot points away, how is that transition handled? Are REH’s writings acknowledged to account for this gap in time? ie. Did Conan spend time with the Aesir? Was there a battle of Venarium? Did he spend time as a thief in Zamora?
I made several references directly from REH including the battle of Venarium and Conan’s days as a thief in Zamora. Micheal Stackpole expands on them in his novelization. Not all the references made it into the final cut, but it’s clear that the adult Conan has had a number of adventures under his belt.

26. What ethnicity is Khalar Zym? What country does he hail from? Assuming he’s from the far East, how could he possibly move an entire army across several sovereign nations in order to invade Cimmeria?
Originally, the character was named Khalar Sing and he was from Vendhya, producers were going to get an Indian actor to play him, but the role was cast with Steven Lang. Since Steven doesn’t look like he’s from Vendhya, Khalars ethnicity was changed to Nemedian and his last name was changed to Zym.

27. Judging by the trailer and the most recent promotional materials, there seems to be a big effort on the part of the producers to attract the “300″ crowd. How important was this demographic when putting the film together?
Again, in order to justify the expense of the movie, especially since the director/producers demanded an R-rating, considerations and comprises had to be made in order to reach a wide audience, most of whom don’t know Aquilonia from Aquafresh, Crom from Chronic. That said, the film does NOT! have the look or style of 300, and the music in the trailers isn’t the music you will hear in the final film.

Very fascinating stuff.

*83, according to this highly scholarly chart.