Aint It Cool News is kinda, sorta, may be, confirming the rumor that Brett Ratner will be directing Conan for Lionsgate. Written by Outlander scribes Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain, the $100 million R-rated tent pole is neither a remake or a sequel, as they are starting over from the original stories.
Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in a series of fantasy pulp stories published in Weird Tales in the 1930s, later popularized in the 1982 John Milius film Conan the Barbarian, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones.
Why must Brett Ratner keep attaching himself to beloved film properties? Why can’t he direct something original, a stupid spec [...]

On Thursday, we played pinata with the rumor that Brett Ratner was in talks to helm the $100 million R-rated Conan reboot. Well, Latino Review put the gossip in focus, reporting that Ratner merely took a meeting with Nu Image, and evidently so have a lot of other directors. We think a few of them would be ace for the job.
Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank, Crank 2, Crank 3/3D, Game, Jonah Hex)

At Slashfilm: In Crank We Trust (a lot). With their debut feature, the duo hit the ground running with so much batty confidence and aggression that we’ll support any genre fare they wish to assault with a bullet-time [...]

Before I shower, thought I’d get this item out of the way. Dread Central is reporting that director Brett Ratner—who is reeling from having his lifelong dream of Guitar Hero: The Movie dashed by Activision—is being sought by Nu Image for their Conan reboot. As of now, this is merely a rumor for us to smirk at. Last month we noted that Lionsgate was having the $100 million R-rated tent pole fast tracked, using a script rewrite from Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain (Outlander). One of the producers compared their uncompromising vision to The Dark Knight. Soon thereafter, Slashfilm learned that a giant R was shot into the sky over [...]

Rumblings of a new Conan movie have been ongoing for two years now, and today Lionsgate announced a fresh pair of screenwriters for its $100 million, R-rated tent pole. Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain will rework the former script. The duo previously wrote Outlander, the vikings-versus-alien movie currently growing moss over at The Weinstein Co. In recent months, Outlander has earned a fair number of supporters, Slashfilm included. AICN even wrote a letter to Harvey Weinstein praising the film and pleading for a wide release. From our standpoint, their involvement in this franchise has potential. Here’s what producer Fredrick Malmberg told the trades…
“We all want this movie to go into [...]

/Film reader Tony P sends along word that Mike O’Hearn, otherwise known as “Titan” on NBC’s American Gladiators, was on the Todd n’ Tyler radio show (in Omaha) this morning making some pretty big claims about his upcoming Hollywood plans. He claims that he has a meeting at 11:00am this morning to be the lead in Lionsgate’s upcoming reboot of Conan. Not only that, I heard the audio from the program and “Titan” insists that he has already passed the audition stage. “Today’s not even an audition. They’re bringing me in today just to sit me down and talk. How about that? It’s even better than an audition!
And if [...]

Have any Slashfilm readers in Hollywood seen the following costumed street team promoting Neil Marshall’s Doomsday near Franklin and Highland? I’m not sure if this stunt would even grab my attention in L.A., because so many people in L.A. dress this ridiculously. In the book The Game such loud “fashion” is even referred to as “peacocking” I think. Either way, it’s worth a shot, as Marshall’s Mad Max-meets-proto-virus apocalypse flick is not tracking so great at the moment for its release next weekend. So, if you think Neil Marshall is the right guy to tackle a remake of Conan (I’m not so sure), go see it and/or honk, honk, honk.

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A few days ago Rob Zombie was said to be up for the skull-and-horn adorned director’s chair on the 2009 Lionsgate tent-pole Conan. The plethora of dried blood and fur, swords, mating calls and battle cries that drenched my imagination when I heard this rumor was lovely. Zombie could do both the classic barbaric character and John Milius’s wild original film supreme justice. Of course, now we now know that Zombie’s next film will be Tyrannosaurus Rex, with word growing that it’s a hardcore flick about bikers, set for late summer 2009. No Conan for him.
Another name swirling in the rumor mill is Xavier Gens, who helmed the flashy video [...]

Nu Image/Millennium Films has inked a deal with Lionsgate for the North American distribution rights for a new film series based on the Robert E. Howard-created character Conan the Barbarian. The new film will be written by Sahara scribes Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer. So if you had any hope for this new action fantasy epic, go rent A Sound of Thunder (or better yet, don’t).
Conan was created long before the original 1982 movie was produced. The original character was created by Robert E. Howard in a series of fantasy pulp stories published in Weird Tales in the 1930s.
When the project was set up at Warner Bros, the studio [...]