Conan the Barbarian has found a new home, and it’s not quite where we expected it to be. Paradox Entertainment, which owns the franchise, started shopping the famous barbarian around earlier this year after refusing yet another option with Warner Brothers, which has had the rights tied up for seven years and three extensions without providing a suitable project for the character. Just over a month ago rumors were spreading that New Line would be the studio awarded the rights, offering a sizable, yet unknown, amount for a shot at reinventing the franchise.
Instead, Variety reports the winning bid has gone to Millennium Films. The specific amount of a presumed seven-figure deal hasn’t been disclosed, but the production company plans on opening talks with potential distributors later this week and hopes to have a project in production by the spring. Even New Line wasn’t going to be able to pull things together that rapidly, with a hope of pushing forward within eighteen months.
While Millennium’s ambition is a good sign for the franchise, they have their work cut out for them. Previous drafts of a Conan film have been written by seemingly everyone in Hollywood, from the Wachowski Brothers to Robert Rodriguez, however Warner Brothers owns everything that was developed during their time with the optioned rights, meaning Millennium will be starting from scratch. That may be a good thing, since the studio’s hope is to create something a little closer to Robert E. Howard’s original creation than the movies to date.
