Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning for King Conan, a new Conan the Barbarian movie in development at 20th Century Studios that has the Mission: Impossible franchise’s Christopher McQuarrie attached to write and direct, Deadline can confirm.
Reps for 20th declined to comment. Schwarzenegger broke the news himself in an appearance at the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend.
“With King Conan, it’s a great old story that Conan was forty years as King, and now he gets forced out of the kingdom, and there’s conflict, of course, but somehow he comes back, and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic, and creatures and stuff like that,” Schwarzenegger reportedly said.
Centered on the pulp fantasy character created by Robert E. Howard, which originated as part of Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s, Conan is a wandering warrior navigating brutal battles, political intrigue and supernatural threats in the fictional Hyborian Age.
Helping to cement Schwarzenegger as a movie star, on the heels of his success as a bodybuilder, the first film released in 1982 saw Conan on a quest for revenge against James Earl Jones’ cult leader Thulsa Doom. The sword-and-sorcery title grossed over $68M worldwide, coming to be appreciated as a cult classic, and spawned the sequel Conan the Destroyer (1984). Schwarzenegger intended to make the threequel Conan the Conqueror in the late ‘80s but it never came to pass. Universal released the first two films, with Lionsgate attempting to reboot the franchise in 2011 with Jason Momoa starring, though that plan came and went.
Schwarzenegger is repped by UTA, Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, and Lavely & Singer. McQuarrie is repped by Greenberg Glusker.
