Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played Conan in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian and reprised the role in 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, says when he’s asked Netflix about a new live-action Conan adaptation “they don’t know anything about it.”
Schwarzenegger spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, where he discussed the future of the Terminator franchise, his relationship with his father, his divorce, a possible Triplets film with Danny DeVito, and more.
He also discussed a possible third Conan film, The Legend of Conan, telling the outlet, “It’s been pending for the last 10 years. [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.”
As for how he would make the film if it does get the greenlight, Schwarzenegger said, “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’s Cabinet Group was acquired by Funcom and housed in their Heroic Signatures subsidiary back in 2021. Malmberg stayed on as President of Heroic Signatures following the acquisition. He explained why he sold to Funcom saying, ““We took Cabinet Group as far as we could as an independent studio, but in order to achieve further growth, we were in need of bigger financial investments and infrastructure.”
At the time of the acquisition, Funcom CEO Rui Casais indicated they were developing a video game based on a number of Robert E. Howard’s character. Casais detailed, “We are currently overseeing the development of an unannounced game which will combine many of the characters in the Robert E. Howard universe.”
“And if you combine Funcom’s knowledge of games with Heroic Signatures’ knowledge of the TV/entertainment, publishing, and licensing industries, it makes us perfectly placed to take this venture to the next level. It’s exciting times ahead for us and for fans of the IPs,” Casais added.
Before the acquisition, a Conan the Barbarian TV series was announced back in 2018 with Deadline reporting the series would stream on Prime Video and would be helmed by Ryan Condal, Miguel Sapochnik, and Executive Producer Warren Littlefield.
The original report detailed the series would retell Conan’s origins as he is “driven out of his tribal homelands [and] wanders the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage.”
However, that project never came to fruition and Deadline would report in 2020 that “an epic live-action series based on Conan” was in development at Netflix. Not only was Netflix reportedly developing a Conan live-action series, but Deadline also noted they had struck a deal to “develop works across TV and film, both live-action and animated” for Conan.
In 2021. Malmberg provided an update on the live-action development of the series telling Midnight’s Edge, “With Conan, I’m happy to say that we are writing. We are in development, which means we basically work with a writer, who has written the first draft of the pilot of the series, and then a season overview.”
“So, we are working together with the Netflix team. Obviously, with Covid, it’s been a little tricky because everybody’s working from home. It’s all Zoom conferences and very difficult to get everyone aligned. So, things are progressing, but as always you want them to progress faster than they do, but that’s the world they live in. But things are going well,” he added.
More recently Malmberg provided an update to Midnight’s Edge telling the channel’s creator Andrew Einherjar, “I wish I could tell you. I can’t tell you right now. I hope that we will actually be able to tell the world about our plans this summer. And as you can understand it’s a space which is it needs to be done right. We failed the last time around, I think it’s fair to say. And this time we don’t want to repeat that.”
“Better to be safe and sorry and not spill the beans until it’s ready to be spent,” he concluded.
What do you make of Schwarzenegger’s comments about Conan the Barbarian? Is there series still at Netflix? Is the live-action series still happening?