Which Arnold Schwarzenegger movie do you wish had a sequel? 1985 cult classic action kill ‘em up Commando, perhaps? Buddy comedy Twins? Or maybe you’ve always wondered what Last Action Hero 2 might look like?
For the 77-year-old Schwarzenegger, there’s one movie in particular he made that he’d love to get the sequel treatment: Conan.
For the uninitiated, Arnie exploded onto the scene with 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, in which he played the title role. The fantasy action movie adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan pulled no punches, and with James Earl Jones in imperious form as the snakey villain, remains a fan favorite even now, nearly 45 years later.
Conan the Barbarian did in fact get a sequel, 1984’s sillier Conan the Destroyer. This time, Arnie was joined by singer Grace Jones as Zula and basketball player Wilt Chamberlain as Bombaata. He never picked up Conan’s famous broadsword again.
Fast forward to a recent interview with Collider to promote his action comedy series Fubar, and Schwarzenegger namechacked Conan as the movie he wishes he could make sequels for.
“Sometimes I wish that we could do more Conan sequels, because I think that if you have the right director and the right writing, there could be a really, really good franchise to continue King Conan and stuff like that,” he said.
Conan fans have long wondered if they’d ever get a King Conan movie. At the end of Conan the Barbarian, we’re treated to an image of an older Arnie as King Conan, sat on Thulsa Doom’s throne and ruling over the land, with the promise of more stories to be told. But we never got to see Arnie as King Conan.
Clearly, Arnie wanted King Conan to happen. So what went wrong? A 2023 article by the Daily Telegraph revealed at least two King Conan scripts were at various points in circulation. One was by Conan director John Milius, who apparently claimed he was blocked by The Matrix’s Wachowskis, who “had vague plans to put their personal spin on Howard.” Those plans never went anywhere.
The other script was by Fast and the Furious writer Chris Morgan, but it was canceled in 2017 due to cold feet amongst executives. “Our take was Conan, 30 years later, a story like the Clint Eastwood Unforgiven,” Morgan revealed. “It was so awesome. Ultimately, the budget was big; the studio was not really sure of the title, and the relevance in the marketplace. They ended up letting it go.”
But there were more recent talks, too. Two years ago, Schwarzenegger told The Hollywood Reporter that a Conan sequel had been “pending” for a decade, expressing frustration at current rights holder Fredrik Malmberg.
“It’s been pending for the last 10 years,” he said. “[Fredrik] Malmberg owns the rights. He comes to me and says, ‘Oh, I have a deal with Netflix,’ and when we ask Netflix, they don’t know anything about it. It’s one of those crazy things. I hope he figures it out. I think you do it like Unforgiven, where you play the age. There’s a great script out there that John Milius wrote, and others have written one. The story is there. There are directors who want to do it. But he has the rights, and until he sells the rights for one or two movies, or for the franchise, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Malmberg took to social media to respond to Arnie’s Netflix claims, saying: “We spent three years with Netflix and talked to them about Arnold several times. We are now working with a major filmmaker who is great and a true Conan fan. Will share more when I can by Crom!”
Since then, nothing. Is Arnie, who is just a few years away from his 80th birthday, now too old now to play King Conan? Whatever happens, he can look back on Conan with pride. After Conan the Barbarian exploded, Arnie went on to star in James Cameron’s Terminator, his global fame secured.
What Conan fans are getting is a new Red Sonja movie, whose debut trailer came out last week. As for King Conan starring Arnie, perhaps this one will go down as the one that got away.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
