Per the Hollywood Reporter, Brett Ratner, the director of the third X-Men movie, is in final negotiations to direct a new Conan movie, set for release in 2010 (Ignore the date on the image to the right, which was released some time ago). He chose to direct Conan over directing a new Beverly Hills Cop movie (which he is still involved with developing):
Who would you rather spend a year with: Axel Foley or Conan the Cimmerian?
This has been director Brett Ratner’s dilemma for the past few weeks, as he weighed two high-profile projects: Paramount’s fourth installment of the “Beverly Hills Cop” franchise and a 21st century take on “Conan” co-produced by Nu Image/Millennium and Lionsgate Films.
By the end of Friday, Ratner had made his choice. He has committed to take on literature’s most famous barbarian and is in final negotiations to helm the picture, which is aiming for a release in early 2010. Eddie Murphy and the Pointer Sisters will have to wait.
The new Conan movie was written by Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly, who wrote Sahara. “The writers are doing a quick polish to incorporate some of Ratner’s ideas,” the trade reports.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
NO.
No.
No. No.
Brett Ratner must be stopped.
November 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
DEAR GOD NO!!!!!
November 8th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Since both of those movies are in a tie for last place, whatever he chose is pretty arbitrary as far as I’m concerned. Sucks to be Ratner either way.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
it’s as though he picked the one that would be the least suitable for him
I have no type of contempt for Ratner; I like the first 2 Rush Hour’s and The Last Stand was my second favorite X-Men flick, hated the first one. With the right script he could make a great Beverly Hills Cop but he’s someone I’d never imagine for a sword and sandals style epic like Conan. It might end up like The Scorpion King.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Do we have confirmation yet that this film is going to be more faithful to Howard’s stories than the previous films? Not sure what I think of Ratner either way, but I’ll lose my interest if it’s going to be “random fantasy story” again instead of the actual Conan.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
A. Base a Conan movie on THE ACTUAL STORIES WRITTEN BY ROBERT E. HOWARD FOR ONCE!
B. Fire the director it’s not too late!
November 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Just what we all wanted, a crappy Conan film…
November 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Ratner doesn’t seem like he will stay close to the source material. Haven’t the powers that be realized that satying close to the soucre material will make a great movie and also bring in fans?
X3 kinda disapointed me, the best thing about X3 was Angel and Iceman going into ice form!
Maybe Ratner is a hardcore Conan fan?
November 9th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
ah… Good looking.. Ratner should hopefully involve some good actors in the film and be more inclusive to actors of color in portraying Conan’s ancient world.. casting Djimon Honsou as Zula or Thulsa Doom should be good..
November 10th, 2008 at 2:27 am
No, goddamit.
Look,I know the source material can be construed as racist. I know that many ideas which work in pulp novels don’t work on film. There is a solution.
Make a movie that is completely different from Conan.
Don’t call it Conan.
With regard to Brett Ratner, this is the same as the Constantine movie and Keanu Reeves: no, this concept is not going to make it through the Hollywood Crappification Machine intact, but hiring this guy sure won’t help.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Well, I don’t see much of a need for any more “Beverly Hills Cop” movies (whether Eddie Murphy is involved or not). The last film came out in 1994 and that was about one too far (considering it came 7 years AFTER the second one, it should be quite evident that a fourth movie in the series is UNneeded).
As to his tackling a new Conan film, I honestly don’t believe that Ratner could really be any worse than the directors involved with the Ah-nuld Conan films. Neither John Milius (the director of the first film) nor Richard Fleischer (the director of the second film) was a particularly outstanding director. Fleischer had a few big successes (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage) but he also gave us some major wastes of film (Red Sonja, Mandingo, Che!, The Jazz Singer–the one with Neil Diamond*). Milius has had only about a dozen offerings for his whole career–when you consider that Conan the Barbarian was one of his biggest highlights (Big Wednesday and Red Dawn may be his other noteworthy films), it’s easy to see why it’s so well-thought of (despite having a story that was thinner than any of Howard’s SHORT stories and a cast that, aside from James Earl Jones and Max von Sydow who were obviously working just for the paycheck, had no acting skills; it did prove that Ah-nuld would make a great android a few years later though), especially by genre fans. Ah-nuld had the right physique to play Conan (even the accent wasn’t too much of a hindrance) but he also showed the limitations of trying to bring Howard’s character to the big screen. Howard’s Conan was a deceptively complex character, but there aren’t many ACTORS with the proper physique for the role and the guys with the right “look” generally don’t have the skill to play the role properly.
*The only good thing that came from Diamond’s The Jazz Singer was a great soundtrack (two wonderful ballads and a pretty uplifting quasi-rock track made the top 10). The movie itself sucked big time.
November 10th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Great. Here comes another Conan the Destroyer … lightweight crap.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Twenty years waiting for THIS?
November 10th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Oh, please, no. I’ve hated every single movie of his that I’ve seen. This would be a tragedy. I still can’t believe how bad X-Men 3 was, I was angry for weeks. There’s almost no hope that his directing a Conan movie would produce anything worthwhile.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Why would anyone want his name attached to either of these properties? I’ve never understood the interest in Conan. I never would have gone near his comics without John Buscema’s work. And anyone who wants to see another Beverly Hills Cop movie obviously never saw BHC 3.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
should have known it was too much to ask for them to finally make a decent conan movie. i’ll give this a chance, unless i hear that either zula or thulsa doom are going to appear in it. since, y’know, they aren’t actually conan characters. the one was invented for the cartoon, and the other was actually a villain to another howard character entirely.