Stan Lee Media Fails to Reclaim 'Conan the Barbarian' Rights

Via The Hollywood Reporter

A decade ago, Stan Lee Media Inc. declared bankruptcy. Since then, the company has been furiously fighting to reclaim rights to valuable intellectual property that the company's board of directors believes was fraudulently taken during the bankruptcy process. Next month, the company is set to appear before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to make the argument that a lower court should let continue a case questioning whether comic book genius Stan Lee validly terminated his contract with the company that bears his name.

In the meantime, SLMI has experienced another defeat. Last week, a federal judge in California tossed SLMI's attempt to reclaim ownership over rights to "Conan the Barbarian."

SLMI was founded by Lee in the late-1990s, before the company hit a rocky period and Lee returned to the House of Marvel.

STORY: 'Conan the Barbarian' Lawsuit Seeks Character Rights (Exclusive)
Since filing for bankuptcy, SLMI has struggled to reformulate itself. Finally, in 2010, the company was able to get court approval on a new board of directors. Since then, against its founder's wishes, the company has been attempting to revive claims that it experienced a conspiracy to rob it of its assets.

This includes an ongoing lawsuit over characters such as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four. On March 8, the 2nd Circuit is scheduled to hear SLMI's arguments that it now has standing to pursue efforts to reclaim these multi-billion dollar properties.

As SLMI waits for the showdown, the company has experienced another stinging defeat.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson dismissed SLMI's lawsuit against Conan Sales Co., Paradox Entertainment, and Lee's long-time attorney Arthur Lieberman, among others, in an action that sought to restore SLMI's rights to the "Conan the Barbarian" character and gain proceeds from exploitation of the character, including last year's film release of Conan the Barbarian 3D.

SLMI made the claim based on arguments that in early 2002, when Conan Sales Co. bought back rights to the "Conan" character, 1,800 SLMI shareholders weren't given proper notice. The company also alleged that Lieberman had made misrepresenations during the ordeal and failed to disclose conflicts. Finally, the company asserted that its interests were not properly represented during the proceedings that led to "Conan" being taken from them.
Judge Wilson has rejected these claims on various grounds, including that notice wasn't required during the bankruptcy process, and even if it was, SLMI couldn't show standing and harm. Additionally, the judge determined that SLMI hadn't shown that Lieberman provided services to the company's officers and shareholders to support allegations he misled them, and that SLMI did in fact have proper representation at the bankrputcy proceedings.

The long-running, complicated, and bi-coastal litigation over SLMI's break-up closes a chapter, but perhaps doesn't finish the book.

For instance, we hear that when Wilson ruled last week that "SLMI has not demonstrated why SLMI would have standing to sue on behalf of any such shareholders," it has been received as a possible invitation to some of the larger hedge funds who owned SLMI stock to make their own claims and pleas to reconsider.
And, of course, there's the coming 2nd Circuit appeal, which might determine whether SLMI's day in court is coming to an end once and for all or instead spark many more years of litigation concerning some of the biggest superhero characters in entertainment.

Top 5 Reasons Crom Is Better Than Your God

Ben from Canada sent me a link to this awesome article! Thanks, Ben!

Yes, the new Conan movie bombed despite actually being good, but Crom laughs at your box office! Crom cares not for your critics with their unfresh tomatoes! Crom is mighty! Mightier, and greater, than your god, no matter what god you worship. Here are the top reasons why:

1: Your god claims to intervene on your behalf, but then does nothing. Crom’s followers waste not their time with idle prayers! Crom is an honest god! He admits he cares not for your prayers, only your valour in combat!

2: Your god demands devotion, time, money, but Crom cares not for your sacrifices or worship! In fact, Crom’s followers know better than to disturb him for small things like sporting events, for his wrath upon disturbance is often great indeed. Crom only cares that you know the Riddle of Steel, and then if you do, he lets you into Valhalla, where you may dine with the greatest of heroes who have ever lived.

3: Your god inspires much music, and almost all of it terrible. Crom has not inspired much, for all who know Crom knows he smites the unworthy, but what has been offered has been glorious gifts to mankind! BEHOLD! Conan the Musical! Basil Poledouris’ soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian! And of course, the music of the only band worthy of the name Crom! Compare that to the music of your god. Crom laughs at your poor hymns! Laughs from his mountain, surrounded by metal of the heaviest kind.

4: When you die, your god judges your whole life and denies you paradise if you fail. Even the followers of the Aquilonian god Mitra, known to modern men as “Christians”, claim they have a simple test of belief in Jesus, but then claim if you don’t follow a myriad of rules, you fail the test. Crom judges all on his mountain, and asks but one question. “What is the Riddle of Steel?” He may also ask you what is best in life, but that would only be for first choice of mead and wenches. And the Riddle of Steel’s answer has been given away in a popular movie, so if you lack the wisdom to figure it out on your own, you can still get in by knowledge of the ancient film of Milius.

5: If you cannot live up to your god’s standards, your god will almost certainly cast you into a realm of great torment, or reincarnate you as a lesser being. Crom only laughs at you and casts you out of Valhalla. Crom is cruel, but even he has limits to the pain he will inflict. Yea, Crom's devils are more merciful than your god! Even the wisest of your wise men cannot defeat this logic!

Conan Review from Unreality

3 out of 5 stars

Everything you need to know about Conan the Barbarian you can learn in the first few minutes. A baby resting in a womb all of a sudden is staring at a swordpoint in its face. His mother has been mortally wounded in battle, and her husband, the tribe chieftain comes over to give her a field cesarean with his knife. He pulls the squirming bloody baby out of her torso and thrusts it in the air while yelling out toward the heavens.
Laughter abounds in the audience.

It’s up to you to decide whether Conan is the good or bad kind of absurd. There are some moments like the one above where you can’t help but laugh at it, but others where the over the top testosterone feels welcome.
After his battlefield birth, Conan (Jason Momoa) grows up to be quite a little badass. As a tween he’s already slaying bad guys, but unfortunately his prowess is stunted when his village is raided by Khalar Zim (Stephen Lang), a power hungry conqueror set on world domination. His plan involves using his witch daughter (Rose McGowan) to sniff out pieces of an ancient mask powered by the pure blood of a certain strain of royal women. The last piece is hidden in Conan’s village, and his father (Ron Perlman) must sacrifice himself defending it as Conan watches.



Where has Stephen Lang been all these years where he’s now all of a sudden the go to villain for everything?

Twenty years later, Conan has sprouted like a redwood and spends his time alternating between hunting Zim and doing random acts of do goodery like freeing topless slaves. In the meanwhile, Zim has been scouring the continent for the pureblood girl he needs, which says that his daughter’s sixth sense could use some fine tuning if it’s taken her 20 years to even get a whiff. Also slowing down the journey is Zim’s inexplicable need to travel in the hull of a giant ship transported across land by elephants. It’s assumed this vessel will somehow play into the larger plot, but its presence is never actually explained.

Conan unsurprisingly crosses paths with the pureblood in question, a young priestess (Rachel Nichols) who knows nothing of her ancestry. Together they join forces with Conan’s band of pirates and thieves to take on Zim and throw a stone in the gears of his plan for godlike ascension.

Conan as a film, and as a man, never lets up. I’ve seen more violent movies perhaps, as the variety of kills you’ll see here are mostly typical sword stabs and limb hacking, but in terms of pure volume of fight scenes, I think the film is unmatched. There is never more than four or five minutes of downtime between every new battle, and so I guess you can say the film delivers what it promises, nonstop bloody carnage.


Despite the way it looks, she is not actually a zombie.

But what it lacks is a story that’s in any way unpredictable. From my brief plot outline above, you can easily guess what happens, and there just isn’t a single surprise to be found in the plot. It’s probably best compared to another recent sword and sorcery epic, Prince of Persia, but with gallons more blood and a lead who doesn’t need to bother with trying to be charming.

One thing I got out of Conan was that I expect Jason Momoa to become a full fledged action star any day now. Not that the movie was good, but just seeing him onscreen, he possesses the rare combination of having an absolutely mammoth muscular build and I’ll say it, being a very good looking guy. This is opposed to say, Arnold or Stallone, who had the giant build, but had faces more suited for radio, yet still found huge success in the genre.

Unfortunately, Momoa hasn’t really been given a chance to prove himself in terms of acting ability, as now his two most memorable roles consist of Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones, where he averaged two lines per episode in a made up language, and now Conan, where the most profound line he’s given is “I live, I love, I slay, and I am content.” But expect him to start cropping up in many action films to come, as I think he’s unique enough to stand out and stick around. And I think when they do finally make that God of War movie, we’ve definitely found our Kratos.

Conan the Barbarian is as thickheaded of a movie as you can get, but that doesn’t mean it’s not entirely unwatchable. It’s far from an action classic like the film that it remakes, but it’s not the unmitigated disaster most would have you believe either. You’ll watch, you’ll laugh, you’ll grimace and you’ll be content.

(Reposted from Unreality)

Autopsy Report: LG’s ‘Conan The Barbarian’

Lionsgate execs today are despondent as they try to figure out what went wrong for Conan The Barbarian to only earn a dismal $10.5M from 3,015 theaters. “It’s one of those weekends that gives me a stomach ache,” one Lionsgate exec told me Friday night. “It’s a headscratcher, but it won’t kill us.” But they also know that with Carl Icahn back breathing down Lionsgate’s mane by buying up company shares, and the annual stockholders meeting scheduled for Sept. 13, this is a really lousy time for this secondary studio to have such a box office bomb. Over the last two weeks, Icahn has acquired 756,840 shares in Lionsgate, growing his ownership to 33.2% from 32.6%, presumably in his so-far-unsuccessful effort to gift his son Brent with a Hollywood studio. Last year, Icahn tried but failed to seize control and, after a brief respite, he’s trying yet again, all the while carping about Lionsgate’s profligate management and moviemaking strategy. Here’s more ammunition for him. First off, being in business with Avi Lerner’s Nu Image/Millennium film company is a dicey proposition at best. Especially when this reboot cost nearly $90M, which makes this weekend’s opening disastrous even if Lionsgate’s exposure was mitigated by the co-production and co-release. Not even spreading the buzz that previous Conan the Barbarian Arnold Schwarzenegger was treated to a private screening and “really liked it” helped box office, which didn’t come near to even Lionsgate’s low-ball expectation of $15M from a wide release.


This R-rated 3D reboot of the 1930s Robert E. Howard original source material, portraying the character as the Cimmerian warrior, was supposed to have a devoted fanbase. And tracking showed strong interest from African-American and Hispanic male moveiegoers. There seemed to be a ton of interest when Deadline’s Mike Fleming broke first news of the remake. That is, until Conan was cast. Even Lionsgate admits that the film absolutely hinged on finding the right Conan, and fanboys reacted horribly to then virtual unknown Jason Momoa even though he has since become a break-out star from his role on HBO’s Game of Thrones. Problem: “There’s so much history with this character and this brand they needed someone who could both really ‘own’ Conan (making him feel relatable for this generation), but also who offered continuity with what fans already know and love. Because there’s no competing with Arnold, Jason’s performance bypasses all of the comparisons, playing the character in a very different way than Arnold did and instead taking inspiration from the written source,” a Lionsgate exec emailed me. I happen to think the studios should have bet on a wrestling The Rock-style star with a ready-made fanbase.

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. The backstory is that Paradox Entertainment bought the rights in 2002 when the brand was hitting rock-bottom, with a bevy of licensed products in the marketplace but also quality and consistency issues at every turn. The duo’s first move was to take everything off the market. Then they connected with select partners to introduce the rehabilitated Conan via just three laser-focused licensed products that appealed to a core demo of young adult males (comics, toys, and a computer game). Marketing generated considerable awareness, with a significant Comic-Con presence (which included: talent appearances, bar invasion promotions, interactive fan experiences at the booth). They targeted Hispanic outreach with Momoa traveling to Miami. They also released an online redband clip to reassure young males fearing this reboot would be sanitized. But it was all for naught. In the end, the execution was just poor, poor, poor. Rotten Tomatoes showed only 26% positive reviews. The director was remake specialist Marcus Nispel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th) and the credited screenwriters were Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Sean Hood, and Andrew Lobel.

(Article reposted from Deadline Hollywood)

'Conan the Barbarian' Lawsuit Seeks Character Rights

Just as 'Conan the Barbarian 3D' opens, SLMI files a blockbuster lawsuit to claim rights and profits.

If anybody thought that Stan Lee Media Inc., the company which now operates independently from its comic book legend founder, was gone for good, guess again. On Friday, SLMI made a big move in U.S. District Court in California to grab back rights on the fictional character Conan the Barbarian and win proceeds from the just-released Conan the Barbarian 3D film.
The new suit comes from SLMI, which has had a rocky history since being founded by Stan Lee in the late 1990s.
Initially, the company looked to be on its way towards success after Lee assigned SLMI rights to his famous comic book characters. In 2000, the company added to its stable of rights by acquiring full ownership of Conan Properties. Then, the following year, SLMI entered bankruptcy, and the company's IP assets were diverted, leading to a decade of protracted litigation.
Last year, SLMI found its feet again after a Colorado court recognized SLMI's new board as the duly authorized representative of the company. Since then, the company has been looking to put back the pieces.
SLMI's latest splash is a lawsuit filed on the same day that the latest Conan the Barbarian film hit theaters.
According to the complaint, after SLMI went into bankruptcy in 2001, an unauthorized agent of the company purported to transfer its ownership of Conan Properties back to Conan Sales Co.
The company claims that the transfer of the "Conan" character is void because at that time in 2002, "the shares of Conan Properties and all other assets of SLMI were part of a bankruptcy estate and protected from unauthorized transfer by the automatic bankruptcy stay."
SLMI says that the defendants obtained relief from the automatic stay in March 2002 by getting a judge to sign off on a "Settlement Approval Order" but that this order was itself void because the defendants didn't provide notice and give 1,800 SLMI shareholders an opportunity to protect their interests by opposing the motion to transfer Conan.
The transfers, allegedly made by attorney Arthur Lieberman among others, is alleged to have constituted fraud and a breach of fiduciary duties. Lieberman himself is a defendant in this lawsuit.
In 2002, after Conan Sales Co. reacquired rights to Conan, it sold those rights to a Swedish company called Paradox Entertainment, which has spent the last decade attempting to revive the character's commercial value, including new comic books, a computer game, and now a 3D film from Nu Image/Millennium and Lionsgate.
In its lawsuit against Conan Sales Co., Paradox, Lieberman, and others, SLMI is demanding it be restored its rights over the franchise and that the defendants be ordered to turn over any money or property derived from the success of the character, including the newest film. Conan disappointed at the box office this weekend, bringing in about $10 million. Reports have pegged the budget as being anywhere from $70 million to $90 million.
Paradox couldn't be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, SLMI continues to wage war against Stan Lee and Marvel Entertainment over rights to Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor, and more. Similarly, the company believes that this IP was unlawfully transfered when the company was in bankruptcy protection. A California federal judge recently stayed proceedings, awaiting a ruling by the 2nd Circuit whether an alternative lawsuit in New York can be pursued once again.
Conan the Barbarian was created by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s, revived as a comic book character by Marvel Comics in the 1970s, and became a film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982.

(This article reprinted from The Hollywood Reporter. Thanks to Wayne for the link!)

REVIEW: Even If You Like ’Em Big and Stupid, Conan the Barbarian Disappoints

Movies have become so technically sophisticated, so hyper-real, that there’s almost no such thing as a cheap pulp entertainment anymore: So many movies set out to wow us, which isn’t the same as giving us pleasure. Yet even within those dispiriting parameters, you couldn’t come up with a more mediocre wow than Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian, which is perhaps less a remake of John Milius’ 1982 crowdpleaser than an attempt to honor the spirit of Robert E. Howard’s original novels, though it’s hard to tell exactly what effect Nispel is going for. I wanted to giggle when Ron Perlman, as Conan’s dad-to-be, performed an emergency mid-battle C-section on his dying wife. But the Conan birth scene, so epic in its epicness, is played totally straight. When Perlman holds that tastefully blood-streaked CGI newborn aloft to the mighty heavens, he seems to be angling for a few gifts of frankincense or myrrh, or at least a gift certificate from Land of Nod.

Things don’t get much better when young Conan, a denizen of Howard’s invented Hyborian Age (a time when humans apparently traipsed around in raggedy furs or starched white linen, without much in between), reaches adolescence. Despite the lad’s seeming awkwardness, he slays a whole gang of ruthless savages while tenderly cradling a quail’s egg in his mouth. Today you are a man, little Conan! Before long, the sullen, scrappy kid has sprouted and expanded into an expressionless piece of brawn played by Jason Momoa (of Game of Thrones). When a soupçon of emotion is called for, he can usually muster a minimalist smirk or grunt, and at one point pulls out all the stops to give a “Who’s your daddy?” wink to a recently freed topless slave girl.

But this Conan, lost in a haze of murky beige 3-D, is barely a presence in his own movie. The plot is one of those complicated-but-simple mechanisms involving a broken mask that, once reassembled, grants its owner power over the whole world, and boy howdy, does warlord Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) want power over the whole world. The mask needs to be activated by a drop of special blood, which can only be extracted from a comely maiden with full lips and taunting eyes, in this case Rachel Nichols’ Tamara. Tamara is a monk — monkette? — and the last of a long line of something-or-others. Luckily, Khalar Zym’s daughter, Marique (Rose MacGowan), is a very special kind of witch; she also has a bad case of alopecia, but you can’t win ‘em all. Marique is adept at sniffing out the pure blood needed to reactivate the supermask. She also looks fantastic in her over-the-knee platform boots, and of everyone in Conan the Barbarian, she offered the biggest serving of the violent-silly-sexy nonsense I had been hoping to see.

Did I mention that Khalar Zym, in addition to wanting to rule the world, also killed Conan’s whole family? And for that reason, Conan is doomed to stalk the earth skulking and scowling, though he’d probably do it anyway. Still, it’s wrong to lay too much of the blame for Conan’s blandness at Momoa’s big, square feet. The picture’s violence is overt but also boring as heck: When a bad guy gets stabbed in the foot, blood spurts and gushes everywhere — yet how, exactly, is a foot injury supposed to be thrilling? Later, there’s a ho-hum impalement. Nispel — who has built a career out of making movies that spring from the loins of other movies, like the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the 2009 Friday the 13th — doesn’t know what to do with the violence here other than just show it. Nothing is framed, either dramatically or visually. The movie’s look is artificially grainy, and most of the scenes are encrusted with CGI — you’d have to chip it away with a chisel to get to anything human or interesting or even remotely fantastical.

Because Conan is supposed to be, above all else, a fantasy, an escape, a spectacle with some bloody fun attached to it. Nispel takes it all so literally, and his lack of vision leaves the actors adrift. When Momoa’s Conan utters what amounts to a slogan for easy living, Hyborian-style — “I live, I love, I slay and I am content” — there ought to be some sly euphoria behind it, an acknowledgment that this totally ridiculous line of dialogue is also stupendously awesome.

But Momoa doesn’t have a light enough touch to make the line work. Watching Conan the Barbarian, I kept thinking fondly of The Scorpion King — which featured Dwayne Johnson when it was still OK to call him the Rock — a movie that was, at the time of its release, roundly mocked for being “bad.” But The Scorpion King was really just deeply in touch with an old-fashioned sense of Saturday-matinee junk. It didn’t take itself too seriously, and neither did Johnson; you could just roll around in the movie’s kitsch, instead of letting it roll all over you. The stakes are much higher with Conan the Barbarian. The effects strive to be seemingly realistic, which only makes them less imaginative. And the action is muddy and ill-defined: The movie’s big battle is pretty much a blur of swords and horses’ flanks. Conan the Barbarian works hard to be sophisticated entertainment, without ever stepping back to laugh at itself. It doesn’t live, love or slay. It’s merely content.

(Reposted from Movie Line)

'Conan the Barbarian:' What Fans Say

One calls it "the film equivalent of having someone punch you in the face for two straight hours while someone screams in your ear," while another touts it as "awesome."

Fans seem to mixed about Conan the Barbarian, which The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt reviewed as, "Non-stop blood-and-guts action aimed at game boys and emotionally stunted lovers of adolescent fantasy." The violent remake, which features a death every one minute according to AOL Moviefone's extremely detailed break-down of how the actors die, hits theaters Friday.

Here's what a mix of fans and critics are saying on Twitter so far:

scottEweinberg Scott Weinberg
You know how some movies are called "critic-proof"? Movies like CONAN are "praise-proof." They just get bashed.

AlejoEC Alex Christensen
There were a handful of cool 3-D shots in #FrightNight, more in "Conan the Barbarian," but overall "Conan"'s 3-D was more poorly utilized.

HorrorFixation Nix Macabra
saw it last night, forgot to check in. It was good movie, not as good as the old one.

DylanRaynes Dylan
Conan The Barbarian is the film equivalent of having someone punch you in the face for two straight hours while someone screams in your ear

DylanRaynes Dylan
The Conan barbarian movie sucks :Take a bad movie in two dimensions, film it in three, and what do you get? Three entire dimensions of lousy

headgeek666 Harry Knowles
Saw the new CONAN... didn't hate it. But it has a long ways to go.

18 Aug Favorite Retweet Reply
scottEweinberg Scott Weinberg
About half the negative reviews on CONAN THE BARBARIAN will be from people who are just ashamed to admit they liked it. ;o)

richardroeper Richard Roeper
How did Conan the Barbarian find the time to get an L.A. tan, health club pecs, hair product, body wax and perpetual one-day stubble?

HitFixDaniel Daniel Fienberg
How much $ do the folks behind "Conan the Barbarian" owe HBO for making Jason Momoa into a non-laughable leading man?

batcamp Bob Camp
So glad I did not get the part to play "Conan the Barbarian." The women in the movie are stronger than I am.
LaHockey11 Lara Hansen

Happy Conan the Barbarian Day! It feels like I've been waiting for this day for years! Wait. I have. Can't wait to see a 14ft Jason Momoa!!

leftydammit Lefty McRighty
"Conan The Barbarian: 101 minutes of unrelenting gore" - how is this a problem?

KwanToh Kwan Toh
Just watched Conan the Barbarian movie, absolute crap, main actors R 2 immaculate for the era, only the baddies looks Da part.

lordzion Lord Zion
REVIEW: Even If You Like ’Em Big and Stupid, Conan the Barbarian Disappoints http://me.lt/9x0UV <-Simple. Don't f--k with a classic!

eLaineracheLLe racheLLe aLcovindas
Just got homee :) just watched Conan the Barbarian 8D it was awesome :D kahit lagi akong napapapikit. :))))

(Reprinted from original article via The Hollywood Reporter)

'Conan The Barbarian' Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need To Know (...accoridng to MTV News, anyway)

"Conan the Barbarian" star Jason Momoa hasn't actually seen the previous versions of his sword-swinging adventure — or, as he once put it to MTV News, "the Arnold stuff" — but we have clear-enough memories to know Schwarzenegger's franchise became straight-up silly after the 1982 original and was in desperate need of contemporary reinvention.
Robert E. Howard's barbaric creation deserved better than a faceoff with Wilt Chamberlain in "Conan the Destroyer." Conan finally got it, with Momoa's new film hitting theaters on Friday (August 19). But there was a long and rocky path toward that theatrical release, with filmmakers joining then quickly departing the project and various Hollywood players being unable to kick things into production. Come with us on a journey called the MTV News cheat sheet, as we discover everything there is to know about the past, present and future of "Conan the Barbarian."

Forging Steel
The Wachowski Brothers tried. Robert Rodriguez tried. Brett Ratner tried. No director could seem to get "Conan" off the ground, despite years of effort. Actors rumored for the title role included Dolph Lundgren, "American Gladiator" star Mike O'Hearn, Austrian actor Roland Kickinger and "Twilight" vampire Kellan Lutz.

Rumors of directors and actors came and went, but in the end two men remained standing: "Friday the 13th" director Marcus Nispel, who signed up in June 2009, and Momoa, who officially nabbed the Conan role in January 2010. Lionsgate readied a March production start in Bulgaria. With just weeks until cameras began rolling, word broke that the script was getting a rewrite from "Halloween: Resurrection" scribe Sean Hood.

Swinging the Sword

"I think we're right in the spirit of Howard," Stephen Lang, who plays the film's central villain, told MTV News during a phone call from the set last spring. "One of the things about his prose that's so distinct is that it takes itself very seriously. There's nothing tongue-in-cheek about it at all. And there's nothing send-up about the world we're creating, though hopefully the movie is made with a lot of wit."

The spring also brought looks at Momoa in character: one of him standing tall and looking buff, another of him in bloodied-up action mode. "It kind of is an origin story," Momoa told MTV News. "It's rebuilding and rebooting the franchise. It starts with his birth, what happened to his family, what happened to his father — obviously his father is killed — and him going into the pirating and the thieving and wandering and being the degenerate that he is and then usurping a throne and finding out who killed his father. It's a revenge story, with a little bit of love in there."

Lang also revealed that the film would stay faithful to the source material's supernatural roots. "If you read Robert Howard — of course the 'Conan' stories and novellas — magic, supernatural plays a huge, huge part in them: fakirs and magicians and wizards all over the place," Lang told MTV News last summer. "So magic is part of that world. The magic in this film, there's a lot of it and there's a lot of action-magic as well, a lot of magical fighting."

Drawing Blood

The first "Conan" trailer — a teaser that invoked an '80s nostalgia — popped up online in March of this year. It'd be another two months until a full trailer hit the Web; when it did, the footage showed off a whole lot of swords, bloody action and magical monsters. We finally got a chance to see Lang in action after all those shots of Momoa as the sword-wielding hero.

"I wanted him to be like a knife," Lang told us of his character. "I wanted him, in profile, to almost disappear if possible. I actually have some photos that I am forbidden to show right now. I know there are these photos of Jason out there, this gorgeous stud of a Conan leaping around shirtless. Truth of the matter is, I kick his ass for almost two hours."

An integral piece of Momoa's Conan character development was not to be influenced by Schwarzenegger's iconic performance. "I've never played a role that was played by someone else," he told us. "As an actor, to build the character, I wanted to use my imagination and be creative and use my own interpretation. ... I want to see mine and then I'm going to watch that one — back to back!"

Check out everything we've got on "Conan the Barbarian."

(This entire article reprinted from MTV News, please visit the link so they don't get all pissed and make us take it down.) 

Variety Reviews Conan the Barbarian!

Reprinted here for your reading pleasure (or rage)...

Conan has mellowed, if ever so slightly, since the days when a certain Austrian bodybuilder portrayed the pulp fantasy hero. That doesn't mean his latest bloodbath, also titled "Conan the Barbarian," is any tamer; merely that the protagonist in this Marcus Nispel-directed reboot shows a modicum of respect toward the men he slays and topless wenches he liberates. More importantly, the well-executed pic solves the biggest challenge facing those hoping to breathe new life -- however nasty, brutish and short -- into the 79-year-old franchise by finding an actor capable of filling Ah-nuld's shoes, all of which portends brawny international biz, with sequels to follow.
 
Conan rights holder Millennium Films took a considerable gamble in casting little-known Hawaiian actor-model Jason Momoa, who nevertheless as a burly, long-haired horse of a man with biceps the size of battering rams and a big scar running down his left cheek seems made for the part. The bet paid off, as Momoa's star rose earlier this summer, thanks to his role as Khal Drogo on HBO's "Game of Thrones." That break, combined with a slightly more femme-friendly depiction of Conan -- including a gratuitous glimpse of the barbarian's backside -- suggests the producers have figured a way to inject some Harlequin Romance-style appeal into Robert E. Howard's classic hero.

The other big wild card in this equation was musicvideo director Marcus Nispel, who has carved out a curious niche for himself rebooting B-movie franchises. After bringing a measure of visual style to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Friday the 13th," the helmer once again exceeds expectations, however modest they may have been to begin with.

Audiences headed to a Conan movie already know what they're going to get, so it doesn't make sense to chide those responsible for crafting a work of unrelenting barbarism. There's blood and bare breasts aplenty, from Conan's birth on the battlefield -- where his father (Ron Perlman) can be seen slitting the man-child from his dying mother's womb in an outrageous opening scene -- to his climactic showdown with Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang). In short, like last summer's "The Expendables" (also produced by Avi Lerner), the film delivers hard-R escapism for 13-year-old intellects, aimed to satisfy those looking to rest their brains but not their ears.

Attempting to separate themselves somewhat from the earlier, Schwarzenegger-starring pics, Nispel and his cohorts announced a respectful back-to-the-books approach, but it's really more of the same. Like the 1982 John Milius-directed film, "Conan the Barbarian" shows the young Cimmerian (played by Leo Howard) witnessing the death of his parents, hunting down the man responsible for their murder and demonstrating himself worthy of the sword he will wield in later adventures.

Joining the monosyllabic hero -- whose mantra amounts to a grunted, "I live, I love, I slay and I am content" -- are such stock characters as a campy sorceress (Rose McGowan), a thieving sidekick (Said Taghmaoui) and a pure-blooded maiden (Rachel Nichols). Screenwriters Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood mercifully spare us most of the arcane mythology with which Howard larded his original tales, putting what little setup auds need into the mouth of narrator Morgan Freeman, whose presence offers the first clue that the project aspires to some sort of respectability.

With all earnestness, Nispel embraces the property's classic roots, placing this new "Conan" squarely within the tradition of sword-and-sorcery pics. Visually, the world hews close to the dark, iconic look established by fantasy painter Frank Frazetta, which will no doubt please devotees, but offers as little room for surprise as the film's recycled storyline.

Although the battle scenes are updated with the kind of on-camera carnage that 21st-century digital enhancement allows, many of the effects -- ranging from CG cities to a multi-tentacled sea creature -- are just a notch above the high-def TV standard seen on "Game of Thrones." There is, however, one notable exception: An exhilarating mid-movie action scene produced by Tom Horton and Reliance MediaWorks conjures a bunch of impressive, shape-shifting sand warriors, who materialize out of thin air to antagonize the wild-eyed Conan.

For the most part, nimble editing makes it possible to make sense of complex action sequences, but often comes at the expense of the film's unnecessary 3D. Overall, the extra dimension doesn't add much, apart from one or two flinch-inducing moments when a weapon goes flying out into the audience. With his bulging physique, Momoa is more 3D-friendly than most stars, but the technique does little to enhance it, serving instead to emphasize the separation between the otherwise flat foreground and background planes.

In addition to its epic-scale indoor stages, Bulgaria supplies terrain varied enough to suggest the many kingdoms of Hyboria, but isn't likely to inspire many vacations.

 Via

My Life with Conan the Barbarian

In a shameless moment of self-promotion, I just wanted to point everyone in the direction of an article I wrote for The Strange Kids Club on how the 1982 movie, Conan the Barbarian, has influenced my life. I thought you'd all dig it! And be sure to check out their site all this week for more Conan-related posts going up in anticipation of the upcoming movie.

I even threw in a couple of quick spot illustrations and will have another Conan post there this week. Just spreadin' the Conan love.

Conan @ 79

I was trolling the web the other day for news or info on CONAN the Barbarian 3D coming SOON when I came across this cool little piece published in none other than the NEW YORK times. A highly reputable newspaper. Then I slapped a logo pic together for your edification. Enjoy -Mikeyboy "Back in 2001, Conan the Barbarian, the character that helped make Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, was tripping on his sword.
Conan’s owner, Stan Lee Media, had filed for bankruptcy protection. A new Warner Brothers movie had stalled. The story lines for Conan comics had grown plain weird. Related toys and merchandise were a mishmash of designs.
Then a Swedish company called Paradox Entertainment staged a type of intervention — the culmination of which arrives in theaters on Aug. 19.
Paradox took control of the Conan rights in 2002 and immediately withdrew everything related to the character from the market. “The products were so all over the place that re-introducing him from scratch was the only thing to do,” said Fredrik Malmberg, Paradox’s chief executive. In particular, Mr. Malmberg said that Conan’s brutality had been so watered down in search of the broadest possible audience that there was almost no personality left.
Slowly, Paradox introduced new comic books and a computer game. “There remain a lot of fans of Arnold’s version of the character, but we needed to introduce Conan to a younger audience,” Mr. Malmberg said.
After gaining some traction — the PC game sold about 1.2 million copies worldwide — Paradox decided it was ready to pursue the big payoff: a movie. It shopped the idea around Hollywood, selecting the producer Avi Lerner (“The Expendables”) and Lionsgate as partners.
Joe Drake, president of Lionsgate’s motion picture group, said the film, “Conan the Barbarian,” returned the 79-year-old brute to his politically incorrect roots. The goal is to appeal to hard-core fans while simultaneously introducing teenagers to the mythology of the Hyborian Age (the fictional world in which the author Robert E. Howard set his original Conan stories).
“It was important that this movie stand on its own, but we definitely have high hopes for Conan as a potential franchise,” Mr. Drake said.
The R-rated film will be released in 3-D and stars a long-haired Jason Momoa, who is known to TV fans for his role in HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Young men are the target audience for “Conan the Barbarian,” but the movie’s producers hope women respond to a decidedly modern female character — a witty, sassy and strong-willed royal bodyguard.
If that fails, they have Mr. Momoa’s plush pectorals as a fallback."

Conan the Destroyer Article from Star Blazer Magazine!

I came across this old article hyping the release of the abysmal crap-fest, Conan the Destroyer. They do their best to really talk it up and I admit it's a charming look into the pop-culture past of our favorite barbarian. It's followed by a brief two-page interview with the director (i.e. - the man who single-handedly killed the Conan movie franchise) and then capped off by an almost hilarious contest page in which fans were invited to write in why the loved Conan the Destroyer. My answer would have been brief, and probably included an f-bomb or two. ;)

Enjoy...

Arnold Schwarzenegger Still Keeps His Conan Sword in His Office!

I stumbled on to this article from igeektrooper, thanks to a tip from Topless Robot, all about how Arnold Schwarzenegger's office (he's the Govenor of California, you know) is jam-packed with momentos of his long and prolific film career, including the actual prop sword he used in the movie Conan the Barbarian!

I imagine that this cuts down on people disagreeing with him. Look in the picture below at all of the people sitting there, trying to smile, but holding back a pants-peeing fear that at any moment the Governator is going to behead them.

"What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to get a bill passed through that provides more money for local education! Crom!"

1984 Starlog Interview with Queen Taramis!

I found a link to this interview via the Conan Completist Forums from Starlog magazine in 1984 with Sarah Douglas who played Queen Taramis in Conan the Destroyer. It's a pretty funny article where she talks about her cut sex scene with Arnold, slapping the bajeezus out of Wilt Chamberlin and how rather normal and lovely Grace Jones really is (hoo boy). Enjoy!