I don’t think it’s unfair for me to say that there’s more than a few fans out there who are overly cautious about Millennium Pictures’ long awaited reboot of Conan the Barbarian, and with good reason too. It has taken the project several years to get off of the ground, with production dates being pushed further and further back as a result. Also, to be fair, the original films, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger are hardly classics, so what could be worth looking forward to in the reboot which crashes into cinemas later this year?
Well to start with, you may (or may not, take your pick) breath a sigh of relief to find out that the new film, directed by Marcus Nispel, is NOT based on Arnie’s movies, but rather the Robert E. Howard comicbooks. You may also be happy to hear that Conan star, Jason Momoa hasn’t even seen the original films, and is basing his characterization solely on the wealth of information in Howard’s work.
Speaking to MTV, Momoa explained what he and the crew have set out to do with this gutsy sword and sandals adventure:
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“I went to the source material, I went to Robert E. Howard. I’ve never played a role that’s this rich. So much material. I was a big comic book fan.”
“I haven’t actually seen the Arnold stuff,” he confessed. “I’m excited to see it. I was three years old when it came out…I can’t wait to see it. I want to see mine and then I’m going to watch that one, back to back. I’ve never played a role that was played by someone else,” he continued. “As an actor, to build the character I wanted to use my imagination and be creative and use my own interpretation.”
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As for the movie itself, Momoa tells a bit about what we can expect:
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“It kind of is an origin story,” he explained. “It’s rebuilding and rebooting the franchise…It starts with his birth, what happened to his family, what happened to his father—obviously his father is killed—and him going into the pirating and the thieving and wandering and being the degenerate that he is and then usurping a throne and finding out who killed his father. It’s a revenge story, with a little bit a love in there.”
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So are you excited about Conan the Barbarian? Will you be waiting in line on release day? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section and check out the video interview below.
Scene with Jason Momoa: