The rumours about the upcoming Conan movie are going wild again. According to a source, that has been correct to often, to not believe it, Rose McGowan is going to play a yet unknown character called Marique in the Conan Movie. That name isn’t mentioned on the casting call, so we assume it’s a new character that was created in the process of rewriting the script. Another interesting information about Stephen Lang’s casting. He was offered the role some days ago and has now supposedly accepted it. Now the really interesting part is that the name of his character (Khalar Singh zhe evilz wizardz) is going to be changed.

I must say, that a seed, a glimmer of hope has been evoked by this little hint. Maybe more than just his characters name has been changed in the process of rewriting the script. We can only hope, that the magical hands of Andrew Lobel and Sean Hood have changed the script for the better and the characters name change is only a hint at greater things to come. Let’s wait and see what he future brings.

Update

The source confirmed, that the character Marique has been a male character before and here is his former casting description

He’s in his 20s to early 30s, Asian or Middle Eastern, open to all ethnicities, slight of frame, piercing eyes, cruel, determined to prove to his father that he can rule the world when the time comes. But he has the mentality of a proto-goth rocker, so ruling the world will prove elusive. However, Fariq makes up for his lack of battle skills with his deft understanding of sorcery and evil determination to find the real queen of Acheron. SUPPORTING

So the proto-goth rocker is now a proto-goth chick I am not entirely sure that instills much hope. It rather sounds like some heavy potential for “hot evil girl monologue”, at least if the script continues down the road Doppenheimers started it. It’ll be interesting to see how they utilize the new possibilities of another female antagonist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After some days of struggle and uncertainty about some unknown secret actors still being in the race for Conan, with the slight hope for all of us to be saved from the two mediocre, third class actors, the decision is finally out. Millenium decided they go for Jason  as Conan. The pseudo-rasta wearing hawaiian model-became-actor from Stargate Atlantis.

Here are more shocking news from Latinoreview and more details on the selection of Momoa. Apparently the script rewrite (the secret rewrite) was done by Andrew Lobel, who wrote and directed a short horror film as his only work prior to rewriting the Conan script now. We will see what even the most magic hands could do to the mediocre storyline and writing quality of the last draft of the Doppenheimer script.

But the news don’t stop here. According to Latinoreview, Micky Rourke was cast as Corin, Conan’s father. While I think Rourke is a great actor, I don’t know if that choice is a wise one, because combining a hawaiian actor with Rourke will look completely out of place.

Well I hate to send you off with these horrible news into the weekend, but stay tuned for any debunking, as we will make sure to update this news instantly if that happens.

UPDATE

Here is a little example of how Momoa could look like without the beard, the dreads and with a Conan wig put on.

UPDATE 2

It has been officially confirmed by NuImages website, that Jason Momoa is cast as Conan the Cimmerian.

The holidays are over and the guys over in Hollywood wake up and the newssites are not far behind to spread the newest rumours on film projects like Conan. The newest rumour is that two guys where in the finals to play Conan, but Millenium has decided to look at another, until now, unknown actor to play the Cimmerian. It also seems that the beginning of shooting was pushed back to the 15th of March now.

Kellan Lutz

Those two are no less than yet another actor from Twilight (Emmett Cullen), who goes by the name of Kellan Lutz:

Jason Momoa

And a TV actor from well known Stargate Atlantis, who plays a somewhat “conanish” inspired barbarian fighter – Ronon Dex – named Jason Momoa.

We jump from pretty face to pretty face and the rumours (or Millenium?) keep pulling out worse contenders out of their magic hat of bad and non-suiting actors. Let’s see who that rumoured “unknown” other actor might be, I got a wild guess, he will be even prettier and less looking like any Conan that Howard ever described.

UPDATE

IGN is reporting, that their “Conan contact” knows the third contender is one of these men: Jared Padalecki, Karl Urban, Jay Tavare, Travis Van Winkle or Derek Mears.

Comicbookmovie did an interview with Daniel Cudmore at a Twilight Convention (Mr. Cudmore plays Felix in New Moon) and the actor said that he is a major contender for the role of Conan.

It’s interesting to see who else is “going to play Conan” these days, as there surely is no shortage of wannabe Cimmerians on the market.

Cudmore himself states that Kickinger is supposedly a major contender, which was debunked by Paradox, so it’s questionable if his self-nomination is worth the air ripple they produced, but we wanted to keep you in the loop and on top of the latest rumour.

UPDATE

Daniel Cudmore has posted on his twitter, that he just auditioned for the role, but nothing has come out of it yet.

The Boyana Movie Center wrote a letter to the Mayor of Pernik, to ask him for the permission to use the underground mine museum of Pernik as a movie set piece for the upcoming Conan Movie. In said letter they also mention to the mayor, that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the present mayor of California, would play a main part in the movie.

Since Avi Lerner stated a while ago, that he would try to get Arnold to play a cameo or a part in the movie, it doesn’t sound that implausible that this rumour can turn out to be true in the end. Arnold’s political term ends in 2009, so he would have the time to join the film production in 2010. As recent paparazzi photographs have shown Arnold would clearly not be in the shape to play a bare chested Conan, but maybe they are aiming for the part of his father, to literally “hand over the torch” to a younger actor portraying Conan.

I am not quite sure if this would be a good thing or a bad thing. It certainly would pull attention to the project, that is absolutely worth the “million” that Lerner wanted to offer Arnold to get him on board, but it would also mean the producers really aim to make a bond between Conan the Barbarian and the reboot of the franchise in this project.

UPDATE

As Gonar in the comments pointed out, Schwarzeneggers term as governator will not expire until 2011, so it’s less likely he will play a main part in the movie, because his everyday job clearly does not allow him to be away for several weeks of shooting a movie.