‘Conan the Barbarian’: The cancelled Arnold Schwarzenegger movie inspired by Clint Eastwood
When Arnold Schwarzenegger returned from the world of politics to make movies again, fans’ minds began to race. Would he return to the Terminator franchise? Would he team up with his fellow action royalty? Would he reprise his Oscar-winning role as Mr Freeze? OK, nobody was thinking about that last one, but the point still stands.
One thing fans of the big guy probably weren’t expecting was rumours of a return to a character from the very beginning of Arnie’s story. In 1982, two years before he teamed up with James Cameron, Schwarzenegger played the lead role in the sword-and-sorcery classic Conan the Barbarian. Based on the famous Robert E Howard character, the movie saw a topless Arnie enact revenge on an evil cult leader following the death of his parents. It did well enough to secure a sequel, Conan the Destroyer, two years later and, crucially, solidified the chiselled Austrian as a movie star.
Following the release of Conan the Destroyer, the series lay dormant, with the exception of a much-derided 2011 reboot starring Jason Mamoa. Upon Arnie’s return to the Hollywood scene, it was announced that he was interested in revisiting his breakthrough role. The planned project was called The Legend of Conan and was set to pick up the narrative with an older version of the character, played by a more mature Schwarzenegger.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chris Morgan, a scriptwriter on the Fast and Furious series who was involved in the ‘Conan’ revival, revealed the origins of this idea. “Our take was Conan, 30 years later, a story like the Clint Eastwood Unforgiven,” he said. “It was so awesome.”
It’s no secret that Schwarzenegger is a big Eastwood fan, so it makes total sense that this was the inspiration. Unforgiven, which came out in 1992, tells the story of an old gunslinger (Eastwood) who is called out of retirement for one last job. It was a huge success, even nabbing ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars.
Unfortunately, The Legend of Conan never got the chance to emulate Unforgiven’s success. “Ultimately, the budget was big, the studio was not really sure of the title, and the relevance in the marketplace,” Morgan revealed. “They ended up letting it go.”
He claimed that there were tentative plans to turn the script into a TV show, but seeing how this interview was given in 2017 and there’s still been no sight of it, we can assume that this project is probably dead forever.
Given how obsessed Hollywood is with reboots and legacy sequels, maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world that the Conan series has remained in the past. The two Terminator films that Arnie has been involved with since his comeback have been dire, which could be an indicator of what would have happened if Legend had gotten off the ground. That being said, the idea of an older, more vulnerable Barbarian does sound intriguing. In the right hands, it could have been an interesting take on the character. Alas, we’ll never know how it might have turned out.
There is, of course, still time for Arnie to get his sandals back on, but as the star gets older and older, dreams of a Conan revival become fainter and fainter. At least we’ll always have the originals.
