Rodriguez On His “Conan the Barbarian” Trilogy

“Sin City” and “Alita: Battle Angel” filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has spoken about some old plans of his to revive the “Conan the Barbarian” franchise.

Engaging in a candid 2.5+ hour conversation on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, he spoke of his plans a few decades ago for an epic three-part saga based on Robert E. Howard’s legendary warrior character.

He added that at the time, he pitched it to James Cameron to hop onboard as producer:

“I almost did a Conan movie. I even roped James Cameron into wanting to do it. We were going to do [something similar] to what we did with [Battle Angel] Alita. I said, ‘Let’s do a Conan movie and we’ll make it look like the paintings.’ Technology wasn’t there yet and I ended up doing Sin City instead.”

The plan was to do three films where we would see the character growing and changing over the course of the film:

“It was going to be three movies [where] he does different occupations, It was almost built as a James Bond series – it starts with him as a thief, by the second movie he’s a buccaneer/mercenary, and the third one is when he becomes king.

So the actor could grow with the role, like how Daniel Craig started with Casino Royale and by the end, he’s No Time To Die. You have to get an actor who does the whole journey. So I had a whole trilogy marked out.”

Of course, the film version never eventuated. Its odds did pick up back in 2020 when Netflix struck a deal that saw them obtain the rights to the franchise. However it looks like that deal expired:

“Netflix had it, I went and pitched it to them and then they let the rights lapse. They have… sometimes it’s too much baggage for a character.”

The Conan intellectual property rights would appear to have reverted to Conan Properties International which oversees the rights portfolio tied to Robert E. Howard’s creations.

Cameron and Rodriguez did join forces on “Alita: Battle Angel” which was in development since back in the 1990s but didn’t end up being made until 2016. The Conan character was revived in 2011 with Jason Momoa in the role, but that Marcus Nispel-directed film was a bomb – taking in just $64 million worldwide.

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