Maybe when Arnold Schwarzenegger looks back at this stretch of time he'll take it as a lesson to move on from the old franchises. The Terminator reboot doesn't seem to want him, although he disagrees with that notion; The Expendables appears to be finished without his buddy Sly Stallone involved; and there's a Predator sequel that has nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, the best role he's had in years is in the character-driven drama, Aftermath (review tomorrow). And now another franchise he's been attached to has been put on the shelf.
According to screenwriter Chris Morgan, The Legend of Conan sequel he had been working on as a gritty, Unforgiven-style movie for Schwarzenegger to star in is officially dead. He tells EW...
“At the end of the day, the studio decided that they weren’t gonna make that. I gotta say, it’s honestly a heartbreak. I love that first movie so much, so much, it’s one of my favorite movies. We had Will Beall do a draft on [the ‘Legend of Conan’ script]. He killed it. Our take was Conan, 30 years later, a story like the Clint Eastwood ‘Unforgiven.’ 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. I think they’re gonna look to do a TV show or something with it. But just to be associated with it, pitch it to Arnold, have him get so excited, there was a moment of magic for me, personally [laughs]. You never know, down the road we may revisit!”
I think the key part there is the "relevance in the marketplace" bit. Conan isn't a property with a lot of name value right now, and there wasn't much excitement about the film, which would have ignored Conan the Destroyer completely. By Crom, I do believe this is for the best.
