I don’t know what to make of Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s return to the big screen. Primarily because I have yet to see The Expendables 2, but I have seen the trailer for The Last Stand, which looks crazy enough that it just might work. He’s also got The Tomb coming up alongside Sylvester Stallone and he just revealed his look for David Ayer‘s Ten on Twitter, which I’ve included at the bottom of this post, bringing me to this latest news.
Deadline is reporting Universal Pictures has made a deal to distribute The Legend of Conan in which Schwarzenegger will return as the sword-swinging barbarian and pick up after 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, ignoring the events of both Conan the Destroyer as well as the recent attempt to reboot the franchise with “Game of Thrones” star Jason Momoa in the lead role.
Producer Fredrik Malmberg tells the site, “The original ended with Arnold on the throne as a seasoned warrior, and this is the take of the film we will make… It’s that Nordic Viking mythic guy who has played the role of king, warrior, soldier and mercenary, and who has bedded more women than anyone, nearing the last cycle of his life. He knows he’ll be going to Valhalla, and wants to go out with a good battle.”
Co-producer Chris Morgan adds, “After the original seminal movie, all that came after looked silly to me… Robert E. Howard‘s mythology and some great philosophy from Nietzsche to Atilla the Hun was layered in the original film. People say, he didn’t speak for the first 20 minutes of the film, but that was calculated in depicting this man who takes control of life with his own hand. This movie picks up Conan where Arnold is now in his life, and we will be able to use the fact that he has aged in this story. I love the property of Conan so much that I wouldn’t touch it unless we came up with something worthy. We think this is a worthy successor to the original film. Think of this as Conan’s Unforgiven.”
Schwarzenegger also commented on returning saying, “I always loved the Conan character and I’m honored to be asked to step into the role once again. I can’t wait to work with Universal and the great team of Fredrik Malmberg and Chris Morgan to develop the next step of this truly epic story.”
Morgan, whose writing credits include Fast Five and Wanted, hatched the story and is writing the screenplay with the goal to have the film in theaters for Summer 2014. A director has not yet been named. You have to wonder, will someone eventually move forward on another Terminator film with Arnold?
Now here’s that picture of Schwarzenegger in Ten. You can get more on that film, in which he co-stars with Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard, Malin Akerman and Olivia Williams, here
[via Deadline]
