Jason Momoa Is Your New Conan The Barbarian

With the whole NBC debacle set to come to a head this Friday as Conan O'Brien closes out his far too short stint as the host of The Tonight Show, the word "Conan" has become some what of a buzzword. With the Conan the Barbarian remake set to go into production soon, however, the people behind the film probably didn't want to miss the opportunity to get their story into the trend. What does this mean? We have our title character.

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Jason Momoa, best known for his role as Ronon Dex on Stargate: Atlantis, has beaten out rumored actor Kellan Lutz for the role in Marcus Nispel's Conan. The film is on track to begin filming in mid-March in Bulgaria.

While most may not be familiar with Momoa's work, I'm not sure it matters. Momoa's job is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. You don't need a Shakespearean actor for that. You do however, need muscles and Momoa, while clearly a guy who works out, is no Mr. Universe. Conan's producers may have missed out on a golden opportunity:

And here I thought he was just some lanky Irishman.

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.