Back at the beginning of this century, it was announced that THE MATRIX creators The Wachowskis were going to be directing a follow-up to CONAN THE BARBARIAN called KING CONAN, with Arnold Schwarzenegger attached to star and CONAN THE BARBARIAN director/co-writer John Milius writing the screenplay. That sounds like a sure-fire mega-hit, but the project fell apart, apparently largely because The Wachowskis weren't interested in making it after they finished working on the MATRIX sequels.
Twenty years later, fans are still hoping for a KING CONAN, and fans aren't the only ones – Schwarzenegger has also kept hope alive all this time that he will someday have the chance to play Conan again. Last year, Schwarzenegger said that he has been trying "for years" to convince the person that holds the rights to the Robert E. Howard source material to move forward with a KING CONAN project.
…hire a really great director and do another Conan movie and have me play King Conan, when Conan is like 70 years old and he's disgusted by sitting on the throne and being the king and then something happens after that. It’s really not that far from creating a finished script. The only one who really has to pull the trigger there is the people who own the Conan rights to do a movie."
A few months ago, a black tie event called An Experience with Arnold Schwarzenegger included an on-stage interview with Schwarzenegger, and during that interview he seemed quite optimistic that KING CONAN might finally happen. A video of this moment from the interview has been released online and can be seen below. Schwarzenegger says,
Right now there's a lot of sizzle in town about Conan. The question is just, would they go with a TV series, like a Netflix or one of the other places, or would they go with a movie? So that's the debate right now. I'm really excited about the idea of doing another Conan movie, especially to do something like King Conan. I've always looked forward to playing that character again."
Hopefully they'll make up their minds whether to do this as a movie or a show very soon.