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

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

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

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

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.

(more…)

I just had to comment on this breathtaking link, where producers Avi Lerner and Joe Drake state why they believed Conan failed at the box office:

The concensus among Avi Lerner and Joe Drake, who had successfully released The Expendables together, is that Conan The Barbarian didn’t have the “brand equity” they hoped it would. The pair had convinced themselves that the brand was ripe for a reboot and that the fans were ready for it, so they rescued the film from the major development purgatory it had been caught in for so long.

Oh, of course, this film proves Conan just doesn’t have the “brand equity” they want.  Conan may be successful in just about every other field of media it’s branched out to, but when the film fails, it isn’t because of – say – atrocious marketing, or a mediocre product, or executives who don’t know what in blazes they’re doing.  It’s “brand equity.”

Compare Conan to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  There is no way Planet of the Apes‘ “brand equity” was stronger than Conan’s at this point in time: the last time it made so much as a blip on the popular radar was 2001, with a poorly-received Tim Burton reimagining.  It didn’t have a long-running popular comic series, nor multiple video games, nor a resurgence in publication of the source material in the lead up to the film.  Yet Rise of the Planet of the Apes did gangbusters, even though the Planet of the Apes franchise hasn’t been on the cultural landscape for a decade. Why?  It had a good story, strong characters and quality product created by some of the best people in the industry, and advertising highlighted those strong points.

In this ecomonic climate, people can’t afford to just go to multiple films at the cinema the way they could back in the ’80s. They couldn’t just go to see a film on the off-chance it might be a laugh: they have to know they’re going to get their money’s worth. People don’t care about loyalty to brands, they just want something that’ll promise them a good night at the cinema. Judging by the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Help, it’s evident that people are more willing to go to a film for the story and characters than they are for scene upon scene of mindless action. So who’s fault is it, if not Conan?  It can’t be because it’s R-rated, because 300 and Predators have done very well in the past five years.  It can’t be the August release, because Rise of the Planet of the Apes is doing well too.

No, Lerner & Drake, it’s clear to see that whatever caused Conan to sink at the box office, it can’t be the “brand equity” being substandard.  You just squandered the potential.  Dark Horse took the Conan brand and made it one of the most celebrated indy comic titles in the last decade.  Funcom took the Conan brand and made it one of the few MMORPGs that’s still standing tall against the juggernaut of World of Warcraft where others have succombed.  Mongoose Publishing took the Conan brand and made an RPG series that spawned dozens of supplements.  Del Rey and Gollancz took the Conan brand and made multiple volumes of 80-year-old stories that are still strong sellers. All in the second half of the last decade. Seems to me that Conan was, in fact, ripe for treatment on the big screen – but Lionsgate & Millennium dropped the ball.

That said, not all non-film Conan excursions have been as successful: the 2007 videogame was something of a disappointment. Why? Because it was a mindless, fun hack-and-slash with no higher aspirations than letting people go nuts as Conan – and more importantly, that’s how it sold itself. Dark Horse, Funcom and Del Rey took a different tact: they sold Conan as an icon from one of the founding fathers of the modern fantasy genre, highlighted the majesty and complexity of the Hyborian Age as a setting, and most importantly, made it look like a compelling world with strong characters and a story to tell. I’m no marketing expert, but when I see a correlation between products that take REH seriously and promote Conan as a worthwhile, exciting adventure story doing well, and products that barely mention REH and promote Conan as little more than hack-and-slash doing poorly… I start to think maybe you should do more of that first thing and less of that second thing. Promoting REH, selling Conan as an enthralling story with fascinating characters has obviously paid dividends. Promoting Conan as nothing more than mindless killing and sexist exploitation has not.

Those companies succeeded because they took the source material seriously and delivered quality products without insulting people’s intelligence.  Lionsgate & Millennium failed because they didn’t: they were obsessed with aiming for the Spike TV crowd with advertisements that give no inkling of story and just throw a constant barrage of images. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of marketing and the product itself.  But Avi Lerner and Joe Drake are never going to admit that – it’s brand equity, it’s Jason Momoa, it’s the disloyal fans who dare to vote with their wallet.

In other words, it’s everyone’s fault but their own.

Nonetheless, perhaps we should let Lerner & Drake think that the reason it failed was because the brand didn’t have “equity.”  Maybe that’ll mean they drop Conan, and the license can get into the hands of someone who knows what to do with the property. Just keep telling yourselves that, guys – then if someone comes along and delivers the Conan movie everyone’s been waiting for, you can just blame it on the “timing,” or “market analysis,” or whatever. As ever, blame it on everything except yourselves.

Sorry I haven’t been keeping up to date on the blog, Cromrades: various factors have conspired, which shall be addressed after the jump.

First up, let’s look at the news I haven’t already reported on:

• Art Andrews has a massive collection of photographs of props and costumes from the film at his Flickr;
• David Pomerico talks to Suvudu.com about Conan the Barbarian: The Stories That Inspired The Movie;
• Michael A. Stackpole’s novelization of Conan the Barbarian is reviewed at CSI: Librarian;
• SummerGlauWiki (of all places) has scans from SyFyNow’s four page article on the film;
• Rose McGowan has interviews with Montreal Gazette and Comic Book Resources;
• Film School Rejects speaks with Marcus Nispel (and it explains a lot about how the film turned out, IMO);
• Jason Momoa has interviews with USAToday, Miami News Times, The Huffington Post, ;
• Collider has a neat interview with Ron Perlman and Leo Howard;
• Gotcha Movies has a report on the Alamo Drafthouse Premiere (you can see a couple of familiar Howardian faces in the front row);
• The Sofia Echo reports a 24th August gala premiere for Conan the Barbarian (and with the way box office has been going stateside, I bet the producers are praying for the highest grossing film in Bulgarian history)
• Hollywood Outbreak chats with Rachel Nichols in a podcast;
• Honolulu Pulse brought the disappointing news that Jason Momoa couldn’t make it home for Hawaii’s premiere;
• The Daily Billboard has some nice images of the Conan billboards;
• at least seven new images from the film are up at filmering.at; 
• Conan: The Mask of Acheron has sold out;
• Bakersfield Now has photographs of the US Premiere;

The final report on Conan the Barbarian’s takings this weekend are up at Box Office Mojo, and… well, I’ll let the report speak for itself:

Conan the Barbarian went the way of past August fantasy/ancient action movies and flopped hard. Joining the ranks of Kull the Conqueror and The Last Legion and grabbing less interest than even The 13th Warrior, Conan reaped an estimated $10 million on around 4,500 screens at 3,015 locations. It was a far cry from the 1982 Conan, which had over three times the attendance on its opening weekend, though it had a similar gross ($9.6 million).

The Conan remake’s marketing relied on the brand name and generic fantasy action instead of presenting a compelling story and strong characters. The movie’s director, Marcus Nispel, was also responsible for the similar dud Pathfinder. With roughly 2,100 locations, 3D was 61 percent of Conan‘s take. Distributor Lionsgate’s exit polling showed that 65 percent of Conan‘s was male and 69 percent was over 25 years old.

Until we know how the film did on the international market, though, we can’t put the “flop” stamp on it just yet. In terms of opening weekends, however, it does appear to be something of a disaster.

State of the Blog

Alright Cromrades, I feel it’s my duty to inform you about what’s happening with the blog now that the film’s out.

In short, it’ll still be running, but not at nearly the same level of regularity as it has been. There are a number of factors: the first being burnout. I and others have been working hard on the site, and I’d rather slow to an easy pace than crash into a wall at high-speed. Another is more insidious: my general opinion of the film itself. As I said in my review, I, uh, had problems with it. The fact that I had such problems with it led to a sort of crisis, as I felt I had spent so much time and energy on a film that I feel didn’t deserve the effort. I felt angry, insulted and ultimately depressed. Now that I’ve learned the film hasn’t exactly been doing gangbusters over the weekend, I feel a great draining of energy.

Nonetheless, I’m not beaten: I just need to pick my battles, as it were. Future posts on the CMB will either be short links posted on a regular basis, as seen above, or longer ones posted irregularly. I don’t want to use a schedule, as there can be no telling when news will come and at what saturation, but I hope the community which has emerged in the past few years will mean there’s always something for new visitors each day, be it in the comments or forums.

It might interest you all to know that we recently reached a significant milestone, passing 1,000,000 individual views yesterday. The film might not be doing great, but the blog’s chugging along for now. I couldn’t have done it without you all, and although the film wasn’t what I was hoping it to be, I couldn’t be more overwhelmed at the community that’s flocked around it. You are the vital spark which kept me galvanized, even through the disappointments, trials and tribulations. For that, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Well, let’s not get all maudlin: coming up, I’m putting together a pool of the best reviews – not in terms of how well/poorly they rate the film, but in terms of insight, perspective and eloquence, that they might help us look at the film from a different perspective. Until then, keep on clicking: maybe we’ll get another 2 million before we’re done!

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.

(more…)

In somewhat surprising news, we’ve found someone else has thrown their sweet hat into the arena to come up with a sequel for the upcoming Conan – Jason Momoa himself. In an interview with CraveOnline.com, Jason revealed that he’s come up with his own script for the sequel:

Conan himself has big plans for the next Conan movie, and he’s writing the script to prove it.

We’ve got some great interviews with the cast and crew of Conan the Barbarian coming up for you in the next week or so, but we couldn’t wait to drop this little bit of news from Conan himself, Jason Momoa, who says he’s writing a script for the sequel, provided of course that audiences come out for the first one. Time will tell if Momoa’s story or script are actually utilized for Conan 2 - whatever it may be called – but until then he dropped some hints of what’s coming next if he has his way.

Believe me, I have a lot to say about this, which I’ll add later. For the interview, the show must click on.

(more…)

You thought you were rid of that beardy Scotsman? Well, he was sighted at Glasgow Central Station, where he managed to persuade his assistant to take a quick snap with her camera phone. Now we can really tell the advertising’s in full swing.

Onwards for more news!

(more…)

Our first is an interview with Jason Momoa, both in video and text form. I’ll provide the video below, and the text in the rest of the article after the click.

SAN DIEGO – I really tried to get Jason Momoa to talk about his new role as the iconic fantasy hero “Conan the Barbarian.” I really did. However, after the euphoric reaction Momoa and his former cast members of “Game of Thrones” had received the day before our interview at the series Comic-Con 2011 panel, it was clear his breakout role as Khal Drogo was still on his mind.

(more…)

Now, the final part of the puzzle. In the past number of days, some leaked scripts for the upcoming Conan film have appeared on the internet. While suspecting them to be mislabelled copies of the Donnelly/Oppenheimer scripts, or even just some old unproduced ones, I figured I may as well have a look. After checking with a few sources, it turned out they were indeed genuine. I now had, in my figurative hands, the shooting script for Conan the Barbarian. And, as I’ll discuss after the break, the final script for Conan the Barbarian was by far the best iteration of the screenplay.

However, something else happened at the same time: I received reviews of the films by anonymous sources which corresponded with plot elements in the scripts – but with several differences. So, it seems that alterations, additions and subtractions were made to the film after this script was printed, and it is my understanding that there are some documents with reshoot instructions (thus far not on the ‘net). The more worrisome aspect is that one review was decidedly critical of the new film, and that many of their complaints in regards to story, characterisation and plot development were actually addressed in the shooting script. By the same token, the more positive review seemed to coincide with the better aspects of the script. So, just how much of the shooting script ended up on the film?

Well, we won’t truly know until the film sees a general release. So until then, I’ll offer my thoughts on the script – and I truly hope the film is closer to it than to previous versions.

(more…)

(Note: this post has been a source of much turmoil and torment to me. At one point I wasn’t going to do it at all. However, my intense desire to let my Cromrades know – you can thank Dave the Rage for that fantastic portmanteau- overrode my sense of self-preservation. Perhaps my recent discussion about “knowing too much” will be made a bit clearer today, though there is still more than meets the eye.)

A while ago, I received a review for Conan the Barbarian. I was never sure exactly what I would do in this situation, but I figure coming clean about it is all I can say. I felt that it would be irresponsible of me to release a review of the film that was, well, this vicious, without a counterpoint. Whatever my personal opinion on the film, I feel it necessary to provide context. The last thing I want is to herald bad news when unwarranted – or overly-optimistic news, for that matter. So, I decided against releasing the review, at least until something came along to make me reassess that situation.

Happily, something did: a user on the Internet Movie Database offered their thoughts on the film, and they were positive! Now, they didn’t say this was the second coming of Eisenstein or Kurosawa, but they said it hit all the notes that really matter to the average movie-goer. Howard fans would undoubtedly be disappointed (no kidding), Conan fans might have issues, but the vast majority of cinema patrons would probably enjoy it.

What’s important is that I ran this by some of my sources, and they match up. In addition, the details in both reviews appear to correspond – characterisation, set pieces, whatnot – with each other, with few differences. This may be a result of regional differences (the two reviews may come from different countries, and thus possibly slightly different cuts), or misremembering elements, or any number of things. Thus, with two reviews offering different points of view, I felt comfortable in releasing them.

I should remind that the following post will have spoilers: nothing too drastic, no major plot elements are spoiled, and those parts that might spoil have been rendered in text roughly matching the page background. Highlight those areas to reveal their secrets, as it were. I think the site software has some form of spoiler tag, but I can’t figure it out.

You may click when ready.

(more…)