Variety reports that Millennium Films will make a new series of Conan films. They plan to start filming the first one next spring:
The recent summer success of branded properties like “Spider-Man,” “The Simpsons” and “Transformers” led to a receptive marketplace for Conan. The property already is a globally established brand that has 40 licenses including a top-selling Dark Horse comicbook, an upcoming vidgame for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and the Funcom/Eidos massively multiplayer online role-playing game “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.”
When CAA brought the package to the marketplace, at least four suitors were interested, including Millennium and “300″ producer Gianni Nunnari’s Hollywood Gang. New Line emerged with exclusive negotiating rights (Daily Variety, June 28) but could not make a deal. Buyers at the time were caught short by Malmberg’s deal terms: He was asking $1 million for one-year option, with another $1 million for each year’s renewal.
The article ends with the statement: “The new version will be more faithful to Howard’s original creation than were the Schwarzenegger films.”
