The 1982 movie Oliver Stone wrote out of his mind on drugs: “You couldn’t shoot a thing”
While he might be best known as a director, Oliver Stone is also a highly accomplished writer.
As well as penning some of his own films, Stone has been a pen-for-hire for some of the finest filmmakers on the planet. His first big hit was the script for Midnight Express, which won him an Oscar for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’. He wrote the script for Brian de Palma’s remake of Scarface and, bizarrely, the 1996 big-screen adaptation of Evita starring Madonna.
However, one of Stone’s earliest scripts was for a movie that he is eager to forget. He lent his brain to the 1982 adaptation of Conan the Barbarian, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular hero. Stone was brought on board after Paramount Pictures asked for a ‘name screenwriter’ on the project. Following Ridley Scott turning the movie down, it fell into the hands of John Milius, who knew he was going to get on with Stone right away after an incident in his office.
Milius used to keep a Claymore, a type of landmine, on his desk to frighten studio executives. However, Stone, a Vietnam veteran, was unfazed.
“Oliver just went right over to the desk,” Milius is quoted as saying in James Riordan’s book, Stone: The Controversies, Excesses, and Exploits of a Radical Filmmaker, “[He] said, ‘Hey! You got a Claymore! I was nearly killed by one of these’”.
As charming as a friendship formed over a deadly weapon might seem, it did not last long. Once Milius was convinced to sign on as director, he received a copy of Stone’s script. While he was initially excited by the writer’s ideas, the finished product left a lot to be desired.
“You couldn’t shoot a thing,” he explained, “It didn’t make any sense. It was a total drug fever dream, but it was inspirational to read. It had nothing to do with the story or what we did, but he deserved every bit of credit he got, because he totally inspired me to do it.”
Stone’s drug problems are well-known. How do you think he was able to so convincingly write a story about a cocaine kingpin? Milius ended up chucking away at least half of the original script and rewriting the rest himself. Stone claims that the director didn’t use any of his ideas, but he retained a co-writing credit on the finished piece. Although, given that the movie was one of the most divisive of the entire year, he probably wishes he hadn’t.
Conan the Barbarian enchanted some viewers and horrified others; the film was deemed too violent by more conservative outlets, while other critics condemned its overly complicated and serious world. While it was a commercial success and has gathered something of a cult status these days, at the time, it did few people any favours. Would the movie have had a better reception had its first draft not been written by a drugged-up lunatic? I guess we’ll never know.
