Arnold Schwarzenegger has been revving up for his return to trademark roles like The Terminator and Conan the Barbarian like an athlete returning from an injury. He started with cameos in THE EXPENDABLES movies, then worked his way up to THE LAST STAND, then THE TOMB, and eventually THE LEGEND OF CONAN.
THE LEGEND OF CONAN made many of us fans giddy with excitement that the classic character would be returning to the big screen with the original star headlining it. Others were naturally hesitant that it would either be a slapdash effort to cash in on Schwarzenegger’s return to the big screen. Well, Arnold himself has answered that fan conundrum in a recent interview with MTV:
“I’m excited [about it] because I’ve been hyping the idea to Universal Studios for quite some time. The important thing with the THE LEGEND OF CONAN project is to make it into an A-movie that they treat it like a 300 or any of those great movies, rather than a B-movie where they hack a few heads off, a few limbs off and run around with a sword. The audience and the fans are very sophisticated. They’ve seen all the SPIDER-MAN and SUPERMAN and IRON MAN [movies] and the ‘Expendables’ as regular action movies. They’ve seen it all. So when they see a ‘Conan’ movie coming, they demand a spectacle. That’s what we tried to do with THE LAST STAND — to give them the car chases, cars going 200 mph, racing through cornfields, crazy stuff you haven’t seen before. You have to give them great entertainment..”
So, drawing comparisons to 300 may make some fans roll their eyes but I am psyched about the possibility of an over the top, violent, epic movie with Schwarzenegger. It has been a long time since a classic Arnold action movie has been released. Here’s hoping THE LEGEND OF CONAN is that movie.
THE LEGEND OF CONAN will open in 2014.