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Dark Horse's Conan Art Contest

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:41:28 +0000

Thanks to Zach Davisson for the heads-up on the cover art contest:

Conan the Barbarian returns in the most beloved tale of his career next month when Conan the Barbarian #1 by Brian Wood and art by Becky Cloonan hits shelves, and we want you, with a sword in hand--or pencil or paintbrush--to draw, paint, or collage a Conan Cover to rival all Covers. Stoke up the savage fire, Amp up the action shot and bring Conan to life in your own hand.

We want you to Create a Conan cover like we've never seen before. Think hard, get some inspiration and bring Conan to life! Send us your entry at Contests [at] darkhorse [dot] com.
If your Conan Cover is the strongest, manliest, sexiest, and most savage piece we recieve we will print your art in the back of an upcoming issue of Conan the Barbarian. If you think you've got what it takes to bring Conan to life, show us. Never bare a weapon unless you intend to use it. Ladies and Gentleman, show us what you've got.

All Entries are due upon the Jan 31st, 11:59pm Deadline. We'll choose a winner on Feb. 1st, 2012 and announce it on this blog post within several days after. And look for an Album on our Facebook Page of all entries.

Winner will receive a complimentary copy the issue with their artwork as well as The Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 9 TPB, Conan vol 10: Iron Shadows in the Moon TPB , Conan Vol. 9 Free Companions TPB and a Conan Limited Edition Action Figure.

The fine print: No purchase necessary. One online entry per person (one e-mail address per person/address). You must be eighteen years of age or older to enter. Contest entries only accepted if submitted by midnight (PDT), Jan 31st, 2012. Winner will be selected based upon the quality of submitted art (as determined at Dark Horse's sole discretion) from all applicable entries and will be notified by February 1, 2012. Entry becomes the property of Dark Horse upon receipt. Entry constitutes agreement by winners to be publicized and permission to use each winner's name for the purposes of promotion of the Contest without further compensation. Contest void where prohibited. Odds of winning dependent on number of entrants.

(Don't forget to read the fine print!)

Cromrades, this could be an excellent opportunity to show your stuff. But if you'll endulge me...

There's a lot of great Conan art out there, no question. Be it the inimitable Frazetta or a youngster on DeviantArt, you can find some true quality artwork out there. However, as with any subject, there tends to be a great repitition of themes. Conan will usually be either fighting, or posing contemplatively; he will be clad in a fur loincloth, Greco-Romanesque regalia, or some Heavy Metal-style partial armour. Women will usually be clutching - or be clutched by - Conan, lounging around seductively, or cowering in fright; they will almost always be near-nude. Any other figures will either be half-naked savages in a chaotic throng, soldiers of the Ancient World, or a horde of beast-men. The monster, of course, will be apish, serpentine, cthulhoid or draconian, and Conan will always face it heroically.

Wouldn't it be nice to try something different? Conan is a man of gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, a man who's experienced stark terror: let's see those emotions in action. Dress him in something different - eastern hillman garb, desert nomad attire, mercenary armour, pirate regalia. Depict a female who isn't fawning or lounging or half-naked. Draw something other than an action scene. Maybe even pick a scene directly from the stories. There was more to the Conan stories than the action, sex and violence, and it would be awesome to see more of that in evidence.

Or just do another picture of Conan with a girl and a monster, they seem to go down well. If you want to stick to action scenes - it's what Howard did best, after all - then give it all you have.
Read the full article on the blog.

Glenn Lord, The Greatest Howard Fan, 1931-2011

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:04:38 +0000

I haven't posted much on the blog due to my moratorium, but I feel that this news is important to anyone who calls themselves a Conan fan. The news has come that Glenn Lord has died.

If you know who Glenn Lord is, then you know no amount of words can really convey how important he was to Robert E. Howard's legacy. If you don't know who Glenn Lord is, then his Wikipedia page (which was composed by Howard scholar Lee Breakiron) will show an inkling of just how vast his influence and impact was:

A Korean vet and a paper warehouse manager by trade, he discovered Howard through Skull-Face and Others (1946) around 1951. He sought out earlier publications with REH’s work, most notably the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. Starting in 1956, he scoured the country for all REH stories, poems, and letters. Over the course of his life he has amassed the world’s largest collection of such publications and original manuscripts (actually typescripts).

Lord became literary agent for the Howard heirs around March, 1965, and served as such for 28 and a half years. In 1965, he tracked down the contents of Robert E. Howard’s famous storage trunk; the contents of which were then owned by pulp writer and Howard friend E. Hoffmann "Ed" Price. The contents consisted of tens of thousands of pages typed by Howard, including hundreds of unpublished stories, poems, and fragments. Using the contents of the trunk as well as his vast collection of previously published REH materials, Lord provided the source text for almost every published Howard work appearing in books, magazines, or chapbooks from 1965 through 1997, including collections of REH letters. Lord also provided introductions, afterwords, or commentary for dozens of REH books.

Tirelessly promoting Howard’s stories, Lord secured their publication in any promising venue, leading directly to the Howard Boom of the 1970s. This included books by Ace, Arkham House, Avon, Baen, Ballantine, Bantam, Barnes & Noble Books, Baronet, Berkley, Beagle, Belmont, Bonanza, Carroll & Graff, Centaur, Century-Hutchinson, Chelsea House, Chaosium, DAW, Dell, Delta, Dodd-Mead, Dorset, Doubleday, Fawcett Gold Medal, FAX, Fedogan & Bremer, Fictioneer, Five Star, Gollancz, Grafton, Gramercy, Donald M. Grant, Grossett & Dunlap, Harper Collins, Jove, Kaye & Ward, Lancer, Leisure, MacFadden, Manor, Mayflower, Meys, Morning Star Press, New English Library, Neville Spearman, Orbit, Oxford University Press, Pan, Panther, Prentice-Hall, Putnam, Pyramid, REH Foundation Press, Robinson, Ryerson, Science Fiction Book Club, Sidgwick & Jackson, Signet, Sphere, Taplinger, TOR, Tower, Underwood-Miller, University of Nebraska Press, Walker & Co., Warner Books, WH Allen, Xanadu and Zebra; periodicals such as Amazing Science Fiction Stories, Amazing Stories, Ariel, Chacal, Coven 13/Witchcraft & Sorcery, Different Worlds, Fantastic Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories/Fantastic Stories of Imagination, Fantasy Book, Fantasy Commentator, Fantasy Crossroads, Fantasy Crosswinds, Fantasy Tales, The Haunt of Horror, Heavy Metal, Lost Fantasies, Magazine of Horror, Pulp Review, The Riverside Quarterly, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Spaceway Science Fiction, Startling Mystery Stories, Sword and Sorcery, Trumpet, Weird Tales, Weirdbook, The West, White Wolf Magazine, Worlds of Fantasy, Xenophile, and Zane Grey Western Magazine; and several series of Marvel comic books and magazines. In many cases, he was also the uncredited editor of the published version of the REH works. And this is not counting the literally hundreds of books and magazines in non-English languages to which he supplied texts, including Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Yugoslavian, nor the hundreds of amateur publications.

In the fall of 1977, he arranged with Berkley Medallion to put out three Conan paper- and hardbacks of Conan stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner, the first Conan series without any posthumous revisions and pastiches, which previous collections had in excess.

Lord published a few REH collections on his own, such as the periodical The Howard Collector #1-18 and the chapbook Etchings in Ivory. In The Howard Collector, from 1961 to 1973, Lord featured previously unpublished (or very rare) pieces by Howard, letters by REH and those who knew him, indices of poems and stories, reprints of articles related to Howard, and news about upcoming publications and other events. Thereafter, he published similar material in fanzines of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, the Hyperborian League, and the Esoteric Order of Dagon (E.O.D. — an amateur press association primarily concerned with the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft).

An early admirer of Howard’s poetry, Lord published the first Howard poetry collection Always Comes Evening (1957) through famed Arkham House, subsidizing the costs of the printing himself. Later, he was instrumental in the publication of the Howard verse collections Etchings in Ivory (1968), Singers in the Shadows (1970), Echoes from an Iron Harp (1972), The Road to Rome (1972), Verses in Ebony (1975), Night Images (1976), Shadows of Dreams (1989), and A Rhyme of Salem Town and Other Poems (2007).

He published the first comprehensive bibliography of Howard, complete through 1973, in his The Last Celt: A Bio–Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard (1976), a bible for REH scholars and collectors. The book also contains biographical and autobiographical material about Howard, as well as letters, story synopses and fragments, ephemera, covers illustrating REH stories, and photographs. Lord wrote many articles on Howard (e.g. in The Dark Barbarian). Lord contributed much information to the latest bibliography, The Neverending Hunt (2006, 2008), by Paul Herman and the online bibliography Howardworks.

When Conan Properties was incorporated in 1978 to establish a single entity to deal with Hollywood in negotiations that led to the two Conan movies, Lord served as a corporate director.

Lord has befriended, assisted, advised, and mentored two generations of Howard fans, scholars, and editors, providing copies of his typescripts, letters, and vast knowledge to many of them. For his dedication, achievements, and scholarship, Lord received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1978 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the professional fanzine, The Cimmerian, in 2005. The next year, he was Guest of Honor at the Centennial Robert E. Howard Days festival in Howard’s hometown of Cross Plains, Texas, and in 2007 was GoH at PulpCon 36 in Dayton, Ohio. He is currently Director Emeritus of the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

If you are a fan of Robert E. Howard, Conan, or any of his creations, then you owe Glenn Lord your thanks. If you picked up a Lancer or Sphere or Berkeley in the Howard Boom of the '60s and '70s, you can thank Glenn Lord for getting the stories printed across dozens of publishers. If you tore through an issue of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian, you can thank Glenn Lord for providing Roy Thomas with indespensible advice and assistance, and even then-unpublished stories for adaptation. If you watched Conan the Barbarian in 1982, you can thank Glenn Lord for negotiating the deal to make and film it. If you've enjoyed anything related to Kull, Solomon Kane, or the other creations of the Man from Cross Plains, then you owe Glenn Lord for promoting all of Howard's work beyond just Conan. If you've read any scholarly material on Howard or his creations, be it a critical anthology or a wiki site, you can thank Glenn Lord for being the man to start it all.

No one in 80 years has done more for Howard and his creations than Glenn Lord.
Read the full article on the blog.

The Filmgoer's Guide to Conan the Barbarian (2011) Abridged

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:21:28 +0000

Those who've followed my personal blog will know I've been producing a fairly lengthy series discussing the relation of John Milius' Conan the Barbarian to the original Robert E. Howard stories, patterned after the Encyclopedia of Arda's Filmgoer's Guides to the Lord of the Rings film adaptations. It seems inevitable, then, that I would produce another one for the upcoming film. This won't be as lengthy or detailed as the Filmgoer's Guide '82, and will stick to bullet points and quotes. A more in-depth edition of the Filmgoer's Guide will likely follow in due course.

As with the Filmgoer's Guide '82, this is not intended to denigrate or criticize the film's cinematic merits, but simply to serve as a guide. It isn't about saying the film is bad, just that it's different. For opinions on the film's quality, one can go to the multitude of excellent and insightful reviews across the internet, or my review and critique, but this is strictly an impartial assessment - save for a few scathing remarks which I've retained for my own sanity, mostly in the film references section.

Anyone with any suggestions/corrections/observations, please let me know in the comments.

Read the full article on the blog.

The Conan cast discuss the film at New York Comic Con

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:04:17 +0000

Jason Momoa was among the stars attending the New York Comic Con, and here's a video of the panel, with Rose McGowan and Stephen Lang. They discuss things like fandom interaction, comparisons with San Diego Comic Con, ideal roles, and Conan being a "family film" (tongue-in-cheek, of course). I can't embed the video, so you'll have to click the link, sadly.

There was more from the panel not recorded in the video, as FilmBuffOnline also has information:

Although it got trashed by the critics (scoring a 23% at Rotten Tomatoes) audiences who came out to see this past summer’s fantasy adventure Conan The Barbarian seemed to enjoy the film, giving it a “B minus” CinemaScore. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough audiences showing up to see the film to hit any higher than fourth place at the box office its opening weekend.

This weekend at New York Comic Con, the film’s three stars Jason Momoa, Rose McGowan and Stephen Lang appeared at a panel to discuss the film. Invariably, the subject of the film’s poor box office and the chance of a sequel came was brought up. Momoa, who had stated when he was doing promotion for the film that he had written a story for a possible sequel, stated that there was little possibility that a sequel would happen.

"I haven’t heard a word from anyone and it’s kind of sad because I feel a little cheated myself because we really busted our asses to make it amazing for the fans. I was a fan and I think we really hit it but to tell you the truth a lot of people didn’t go see it so I doubt that they’ll make a sequel. I would love it, but there would be less money there and [a sequel] is something that I would want to be bigger and better."

McGowan jumped in to add that a fate of a movie can often be outside the control of its cast and crew, stating that the film’s R rating may have kept some audiences away while the PG-13 rated horror film Fright Night, which opened the same day, further siphoned off potential ticket buyers.

"People don’t understand behind the scenes stuff. Lionsgate and Millennium, the people behind [the movie], to an extent did a really good job. But the entire distribution team at Lionsgate just got replaced. Also the second weekend Hurricane Irene happened and two-thirds of the country was shut down so it was just bad luck essentially."

McGowan went on to draw an analogy as to what it was like to make a film she was proud of only to have it fail at the box office. “It’s essentially like giving birth to this really great baby, you hand it to the nurse and it falls out of her hands and flies out the window,” she said.

“They dropped my baby?” questioned Momoa after the laughter in response to McGowan’s statement died down.

“They did!” she replied. “They drop kicked it!”

Lang added that he has participated in a number films that weren’t successful right away but still went on to find their audiences. He also stated that he was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to see more of his castmate Momoa continue to explore the character of Conan in future films.

"It’s really easy to do a postmortem on the thing. I think that the R didn’t help the business of the film one bit. Maybe it was necessary for the movie. I see that. I think Rose says it pretty well that the distribution didn’t work out quite it should have. I sure wish this one had done much better than it did. I think it deserved a number of sequels and I would like to see Jason track that character for a long time."

While my thoughts on the film's marketing and quality are out there, I wouldn't rule out Hurricane Irene as a contributing factor to its poor financial returns, what with over a thousand cinemas being closed over the end of the second weekend. Ah well.
Read the full article on the blog.

Conan Blu-Ray Trailer

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:35:11 +0000

You cannot kill what does not live, and since Conan Movie Blog doesn't technically count as a lifeform (yet) it continues to occassionally sound its barbaric yawp as the next piece of Conan-related movie news comes along. Today, it's the trailer for the blu-ray release, as seen on Movieweb:

A home entertainment debut as fierce as the warrior himself, Lionsgate brings Conan the Barbarian to 3D/2D Blu-ray Disc, 2D Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Digital Download and On Demand this November. In an epic battle led by an epic hero, Jason Momoa (HBO's Game of Thrones) stars as Conan, the Cimmerian set on avenging his father's death. The action-packed film, directed by Marcus Nispel (Friday the 13th), also stars Rachel Nichols (Star Trek), Stephen Lang (Avatar), Rose McGowan (Planet Terror) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy).

Based on the character of Conan as originally created by Robert E. Howard, a boy born on the battlefield grows into a hulking warrior hell-bent on avenging his father's death. But Conan's personal vendetta soon escalates into an epic battle of impossible odds, facing the fiercest of rivals and the most horrific of monsters.

I like this press release a lot better than the one on Blu-Ray.com: it reads better, they choose better "as seen in" references for the stars (seriously, if you were Rachel Nichols, would you rather be associated with Star Trek or G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra?) and it's a better description of the film itself. Movieweb also has artwork matching the pictures seen in our last report.

As for the trailer... I'm amazed they're still using the terrible "beta" animation for the Mask of Acheron instead of the one that appears in the film (and the first bloody trailer), not to mention Movie Trailer Guy mispronounces Conan's name despite the correct pronunciation being used by Rachel Nichols twice within the same twenty seconds, but to be perfectly frank, it's kind of what I've come to expect from whoever makes these trailers. Ah well, the important thing is it lets people know Conan 2011 exists, and if you shied away from it at the cinemas, you can always rent it across multiple media platforms. Who knows, Conan 2011 may yet prove to have legs on the home video market.

And, just because, here's the Conan 2011 Hungarian DVD:

I like it better than both the US and UK releases.
Read the full article on the blog.

More details on Conan 2011 Blu-Ray

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:07:17 +0000

From Bluray.com:

In November, Lionsgate Home Entertainment will bring the recent Conan the Barbarian reboot to Blu-ray. The film debuted last August and played on both 2D and 3D theatrical screens.

Director Marcus Nispel's film finds Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Cimmerian hero. Teamed up with a beautiful monastery student (Rachel Nichols, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), Conan undertakes a quest to avenge the death of his father (Ron Perlman, Sons of Anarchy).

Ultimately, his journey puts him at odds with brutal warring peoples, grotesque creatures, and the evil Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang, Avatar), a warlord determined to rule Hyborea alongside his sorceress daughter Marique (Rose McGowan, Scream).

Lionsgate presents the film in two Blu-ray editions - a standard 2D Blu-ray version and a Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray 2D/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack.

While the studio has yet to confirm their respective technical specifications, both sets will contain the following special features:

Two audio commentaries

A history of the Conan franchise featurette

The Man Who Would Be Conan: Robert E. Howard featurette

Two additional featurettes on the action and fight scenes

The 2D and 3D versions of Conan the Barbarian street on November 22nd.

Sounds like we're not getting an extended edition, but will be getting some deleted scenes. I'm very intrigued/apprehensive about the "history of Conan" and Howard featurettes, and wondering who'll be on the audio commentaries: I suspect one will have the stars, and one the production. Not sure if it'll be enough to convince me to buy it, though.

The report also has two box art pictures up, though again, they could just be placeholders. They're very similar box art to the TBC mockups on Amazon, though with the "sword logo, and having swapped the oversaturated red and yellow with a blue & orange tint, inadvertently transforming Khalar's soldiers into blue lobsters:

At least it doesn't have those dubious single word endorsements from FHM and Nuts. "Brilliant!" "Awesome!" Put those along with "Monstrously Entertaining!" and "Top-Knotch!" I don't know whether to be bothered or thankful that Robert E. Howard isn't mentioned on either cover, but no doubt his name will be on the back.
Read the full article on the blog.

Possible Conan UK DVD cover sighted

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:42:09 +0000

Comic Book Movie has noted that the UK division of Amazon has uploaded a possible first look at the DVD design for Conan the Barbarian 2011:

The legendary Conan The Barbarian stars ‘Game of Thrones’s Jason Momoa and Avatar’s Stephen Lang. From the producers of The Expendables comes a visual spectacular that brings the fabled action hero Conan to life like never before!

Based on the character created by Robert E. Howard, Conan was born on the battlefield. From those bloodsoaked beginnings, Conan is destined to venture into an unforgiving world after his father is brutally murdered and his village destroyed. As Conan battles his way through a treacherous world of monsters, sorceresses’ and bloodthirsty enemies, he chances upon Khalar Zym - the warlord responsible for his tribe's destruction. And so Conan’s quest for true revenge begins... Also starring Ron Perlman and Rose McGowan.

The massively oversaturated red and orange is reminiscent of the similarly garish cover for Solomon Kane's UK release, lending weight to the DVD's prospective legitimacy. Bizarrely, even though the release date for the film on DVD and Blu-Ray hasn't been announced on Amazon, there are 13 reader reviews as of this writing, no doubt for the film itself: it would be nice if they'd waited until we found out the extra features and picture/sound quality. Some are quite fun - Davywavy2 seems to think Conan was taken into slavery, that Conan knew Khalar Zym's name, and seemed oblivious to Robert E. Howard, but the review is quite entertainingly snarky - and others are just a few lines. Expect the number of reviews to rocket in time: I might add my own if I get it on DVD.
Read the full article on the blog.

Michael J. Bassett weighs in on Conan

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:53:48 +0000

Stonecold-mike of the Robert E. Howard Forums alerted me to this interesting development:

I was sent a note from someone saying that Solomon Kane is available as a download through Netflix. Sadly this does not appear to be true – at least from Netflix in Canada where I am right now. Solomon Kane remains unavailable in North America for what I now understand are stupid legal reasons that I can’t share…Maybe they’ll get sorted, maybe not. (BTW, if it is available on Neflix USA – can someone tell me.)….but this article from Salon.com feels like a small vindication.

http://tinyurl.com/3rbwbep

Though I’d love to take a crack at Conan and I don’t want to insult the people who made the new one but it wasn’t great and I could do better for a smaller budget. How Conan got that massive release and Kane has still absolutely nothing – not even DVD – breaks my heart. I don’t even mind of people hate my film, I’d still at least like them to have the chance to form an opinion.

Well, then...

Editorial

Folks familiar with my review of Solomon Kane and subsequent musings, the DVD, and its relation to the source material, will know I've been pretty tough on the film for its divergences from the source material and its historical flubs, be it comparatively minor blunders like the Union Flag appearing years before the Union Flag was designed, to more serious issues like the weird Catholo-Puritanism religious confusion. However, there's a critical difference between Solomon Kane and Conan the Barbarian: the guy who directed Solomon Kane actually knows how to direct a film. Thus, while I shudder at what Bassett might do with Conan given his handling of Kane - my hyperbolic fear is we'll discover his mother was a Stygian sorceress, "explaining" his hatred of civilization and sorcery while adding a Freudian subtext to his dealings with women - and considering I had serious problems with Solomon Kane, I can't disagree that he would've made a more coherent, interesting and worthy film.

This puts me in some contention with those Howard fans & scholars who liked Conan and didn't like Kane, but all things considered, I truly think that Kane was just a better film. It was closer to REH's world and creation than Conan, it was more tightly edited, better choreographed, more interestingly designed, better scored, infinitely better acted - and, yes, better directed, no question. The action scenes in Kane made me cringe in the right way - mostly because you could actually see what was happening - and the supernatural creatures were infinitely more frightening and well-conceived than the ones in Conan. And, just like Momoa, Purefoy could've made a brilliant Kane in an actual adaptation.

Bassett wouldn't be my first choice by any means, not just because of Kane, but because I'd much rather he make a fantastic Elric film. After Conan, I don't want to see Nispel anywhere near a property I love again. So it might be damning with faint praise, but frankly, I think the Conan film franchise could do much worse. Kane didn't even do much worse than Conan at the box office, $19 million in the foreign market compared to Conan's $27 million - and that's with barely a fraction of the media saturation and brand equity of Conan.
Read the full article on the blog.

Conan 2011: One Month On

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:04:56 +0000

Well, a little over a month since the film's US premiere and Conan, and the film's first few weeks in the open world are in the books. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have gone particularly well, critically or financially: Box Office Mojo's current numbers crunch to only $21,180,241 million domestic takings and $27,500,000 foreign, amounting to $48,680,241 worldwide. While Box Office Mojo isn't infallible - it still cites the production budget as $90 million despite Avi Lerner and Fredrik Malmberg confirming the budget as $70 million on multiple occasions - it's a fairly reliable site for the most part. This is a pretty big disappointment for all involved, and although the first Conan trailer got a lot of buzz on the 'net in the first week of its release, Conan the Barbarian 2011 has officially underperformed.

I'm not an industry analyst, so I can't say with any degree of authority why this happened, though blame has been levelled at everything from the marketing to the film's quality to the Conan brand equity. All we can really do is look at reviews, and see what they see. To that end, I've gathered some of what I consider to be the most perceptive and insightful reviews of Conan 2011 in this post, be they positive or negative, hoping that this might tell us something. I may disagree with, say, Phipps' idea that the 1982 film was the best adaptation of Howard we could get, and Harry Knowles' wish for Oliver Stone to get his hands on Conan fills me with terror, but they're pretty good nonetheless.

Read the full article on the blog.

Trinity 'expels' Dr. Conan T. Barbarian

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:32:38 +0000

Seems that Conan doesn't have much luck in the academic world either:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/brea...ing36.html

My review

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:41:37 +0000

Conan the Barbarian (2011) bears the same name as the 1982 film, but rather than being a remake, the producers aimed to go back to the roots of the character and restart the francise. Their hopes were high when the opening weekend approached, although most Conan fans were worried about what they had seen on the trailers and many of them feared the worst. The opening weekend was rather underwhelming and some even called the movie a flop. This naturally rid me of my remaining hopes and expectations for the movie and I went to the theatre expecting the worst. Not quite Uwe Boll worst, but close.

Happily, my low expectations allowed me to actually enjoy the movie and the two hours sped by faster than I could have imagined. I went in expecting little or no story and that's what was delivered. I went in knowing that the director, Nispel, has no idea how to make grand, sweeping moments in his movies and I didn't get any (who could forget the travel scenes with Poladouris' music in the 1982 movie – how I miss those). I went in knowing that the director is not a character director, so I was prepared to the overblown acting and embarrassing moments caused by lines delivered at wrong speed and with wrong timing. I knew that the script bore only passing resemblance to the Conan from Robert E. Howards stories. Lastly, I knew that the designing department had been doing their best to create the ugliest swords ever seen on the big screen.

With these expectations taken care of, I was left with the mere expection of an action adventure movie with the focus heavily laid on the action. And that's pretty much what I was treated with. The actors pulled off their parts as well as they could with the sub-par character director (there are only a handful of experienced actors who can create stunning performances without the help of director). Jason Momoa gave a nice performance of Conan and looked the part better than any other actor has before. He was the gigantic panther that Robert E. Howard described in his stories. Steven Lang overacted his part as the main bad guy, but the last minute changes to the script at least gave him some motivation for what he was doing and he seemed to have lots of fun being the bad guy. The other actors were never really given time on-screen to fully realise their characters, but they did their jobs more or less well.

Overall, the two hours passed by quickly and I found that I had enjoyed the movie more than I had expected. It could have been far worse. But with a good director, better script and better music it could have been a lot better, too. If they ever do make a sequel, I hope they improve on those three aspects and do so by bringing Conan even closer to the Conan that we know from Robert E. Howards works. I want to see the reason people are willing to follow Conan. I want to see his natural leadership. I want to see the makings of a king.

Sean Hood speaks on Conan's lukewarm box office returns

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:21:12 +0000

Sean Hood has a very frank discussion on his Quora page in regards to the underwhelming weekend takings for Conan:

You make light of it, of course. You joke and shrug. But the blow to your ego and reputation can’t be brushed off. Reviewers, even when they were positive, mocked Conan The Barbarian for its lack of story, lack of characterization, and lack of wit. This doesn’t speak well of the screenwriting – and any filmmaker who tells you s/he “doesn’t read reviews” just doesn’t want to admit how much they sting.

Unfortunately, the work I do as a script doctor is hard to defend if the movie flops. I know that those who have read my Conan shooting script agree that much of the work I did on story and character never made it to screen. I myself know that given the difficulties of rewriting a script in the middle of production, I made vast improvements on the draft that came before me. But its still much like doing great work on a losing campaign. All anyone in the general public knows, all anyone in the industry remembers, is the flop. A loss is a loss.

This ended up on Deadline Hollywood, and led to some interpreting his mention of "making vast improvementsas throwing Donnelly & Oppenheimer under the bus, so to speak. Still others felt he was trying to blame everyone but himself, much like I'd been of Avi Lerner and Joe Drake. However, Sean himself commented at the site, and wanted to assure readers that this was not his intention:

Actually my words “I made vast improvements on the draft that came before me” weren’t very classy because it does sound like I’m throwing the previous writers under the bus, and I need to publicly apologize to Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Andrew Lobel. All I can say is that I didn’t mean it that way and I should have chosen my words more carefully.

What I meant to say that I was proud of the work I did solving problems that that had emerged in the development process, over many years and dozens of drafts. To suggest that I did better work than the writers before me would be both un-classy and flat out incorrect.

Many people have read Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer’s early drafts of Conan when it showed up on the internet, and a great, great number of them think theirs was the best draft of any, including the shooting script. Andrew Lobel’s draft was filled with great humor, which some critics thought the movie lacked.

I didn’t write this to point fingers. As the last writer on the project, the criticism of the story, dialogue, and characterization should fall primarily on me… not my peers, not producers, not studio executives, not the director.

The offending line has been taken from the Quora page, but I'm going to address it all the same.

Read the full article on the blog.

Avi Lerner and Joe Drake blame everyone but themselves

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:22:54 +0000

I just had to comment on this breathtaking link, where producers Avi Lerner and Joe Drake state why they believed Conan failed at the box office:

The concensus among Avi Lerner and Joe Drake, who had successfully released The Expendables together, is that Conan The Barbarian didn't have the "brand equity" they hoped it would. The pair had convinced themselves that the brand was ripe for a reboot and that the fans were ready for it, so they rescued the film from the major development purgatory it had been caught in for so long.

Oh, of course, this film proves Conan just doesn't have the "brand equity" they want. Conan may be successful in just about every other field of media it's branched out to, but when the film fails, it isn't because of - say - atrocious marketing, or a mediocre product, or executives who don't know what in blazes they're doing. It's "brand equity."

Compare Conan to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There is no way Planet of the Apes' "brand equity" was stronger than Conan's at this point in time: the last time it made so much as a blip on the popular radar was 2001, with a poorly-received Tim Burton reimagining. It didn't have a long-running popular comic series, nor multiple video games, nor a resurgence in publication of the source material in the lead up to the film. Yet Rise of the Planet of the Apes did gangbusters, even though the Planet of the Apes franchise hasn't been on the cultural landscape for a decade. Why? It had a good story, strong characters and quality product created by some of the best people in the industry, and advertising highlighted those strong points.

In this ecomonic climate, people can't afford to just go to multiple films at the cinema the way they could back in the '80s. They couldn't just go to see a film on the off-chance it might be a laugh: they have to know they're going to get their money's worth. People don't care about loyalty to brands, they just want something that'll promise them a good night at the cinema. Judging by the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Help, it's evident that people are more willing to go to a film for the story and characters than they are for scene upon scene of mindless action. So who's fault is it, if not Conan? It can't be because it's R-rated, because 300 and Predators have done very well in the past five years. It can't be the August release, because Rise of the Planet of the Apes is doing well too.

No, Lerner & Drake, it's clear to see that whatever caused Conan to sink at the box office, it can't be the "brand equity" being substandard. You just squandered the potential. Dark Horse took the Conan brand and made it one of the most celebrated indy comic titles in the last decade. Funcom took the Conan brand and made it one of the few MMORPGs that's still standing tall against the juggernaut of World of Warcraft where others have succombed. Mongoose Publishing took the Conan brand and made an RPG series that spawned dozens of supplements. Del Rey and Gollancz took the Conan brand and made multiple volumes of 80-year-old stories that are still strong sellers. All in the second half of the last decade. Seems to me that Conan was, in fact, ripe for treatment on the big screen - but Lionsgate & Millennium dropped the ball.

That said, not all non-film Conan excursions have been as successful: the 2007 videogame was something of a disappointment. Why? Because it was a mindless, fun hack-and-slash with no higher aspirations than letting people go nuts as Conan - and more importantly, that's how it sold itself. Dark Horse, Funcom and Del Rey took a different tact: they sold Conan as an icon from one of the founding fathers of the modern fantasy genre, highlighted the majesty and complexity of the Hyborian Age as a setting, and most importantly, made it look like a compelling world with strong characters and a story to tell. I'm no marketing expert, but when I see a correlation between products that take REH seriously and promote Conan as a worthwhile, exciting adventure story doing well, and products that barely mention REH and promote Conan as little more than hack-and-slash doing poorly... I start to think maybe you should do more of that first thing and less of that second thing. Promoting REH, selling Conan as an enthralling story with fascinating characters has obviously paid dividends. Promoting Conan as nothing more than mindless killing and sexist exploitation has not.

Those companies succeeded because they took the source material seriously and delivered quality products without insulting people's intelligence. Lionsgate & Millennium failed because they didn't: they were obsessed with aiming for the Spike TV crowd with advertisements that give no inkling of story and just throw a constant barrage of images. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of marketing and the product itself. But Avi Lerner and Joe Drake are never going to admit that - it's brand equity, it's Jason Momoa, it's the disloyal fans who dare to vote with their wallet.

In other words, it's everyone's fault but their own.

Nonetheless, perhaps we should let Lerner & Drake think that the reason it failed was because the brand didn't have "equity." Maybe that'll mean they drop Conan, and the license can get into the hands of someone who knows what to do with the property. Just keep telling yourselves that, guys - then if someone comes along and delivers the Conan movie everyone's been waiting for, you can just blame it on the "timing," or "market analysis," or whatever. As ever, blame it on everything except yourselves.
Read the full article on the blog.

New Round Up, and State of the Blog

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:15:15 +0000

Sorry I haven't been keeping up to date on the blog, Cromrades: various factors have conspired, which shall be addressed after the jump.

First up, let's look at the news I haven't already reported on:

Art Andrews has a massive collection of photographs of props and costumes from the film at his Flickr;
David Pomerico talks to Suvudu.com about Conan the Barbarian: The Stories That Inspired The Movie;
Michael A. Stackpole's novelization of Conan the Barbarian is reviewed at CSI: Librarian;
SummerGlauWiki (of all places) has scans from SyFyNow's four page article on the film;
Rose McGowan has interviews with Montreal Gazette and Comic Book Resources;
Film School Rejects speaks with Marcus Nispel (and it explains a lot about how the film turned out, IMO);
Jason Momoa has interviews with USAToday, Miami News Times, The Huffington Post, ;
Collider has a neat interview with Ron Perlman and Leo Howard;
Gotcha Movies has a report on the Alamo Drafthouse Premiere (you can see a couple of familiar Howardian faces in the front row);
The Sofia Echo reports a 24th August gala premiere for Conan the Barbarian (and with the way box office has been going stateside, I bet the producers are praying for the highest grossing film in Bulgarian history)
Hollywood Outbreak chats with Rachel Nichols in a podcast;
Honolulu Pulse brought the disappointing news that Jason Momoa couldn't make it home for Hawaii's premiere;
The Daily Billboard has some nice images of the Conan billboards;
at least seven new images from the film are up at filmering.at;
Conan: The Mask of Acheron has sold out;
Bakersfield Now has photographs of the US Premiere;

The final report on Conan the Barbarian's takings this weekend are up at Box Office Mojo, and... well, I'll let the report speak for itself:

Conan the Barbarian went the way of past August fantasy/ancient action movies and flopped hard. Joining the ranks of Kull the Conqueror and The Last Legion and grabbing less interest than even The 13th Warrior, Conan reaped an estimated $10 million on around 4,500 screens at 3,015 locations. It was a far cry from the 1982 Conan, which had over three times the attendance on its opening weekend, though it had a similar gross ($9.6 million).

The Conan remake's marketing relied on the brand name and generic fantasy action instead of presenting a compelling story and strong characters. The movie's director, Marcus Nispel, was also responsible for the similar dud Pathfinder. With roughly 2,100 locations, 3D was 61 percent of Conan's take. Distributor Lionsgate's exit polling showed that 65 percent of Conan's was male and 69 percent was over 25 years old.

Until we know how the film did on the international market, though, we can't put the "flop" stamp on it just yet. In terms of opening weekends, however, it does appear to be something of a disaster.

State of the Blog

Alright Cromrades, I feel it's my duty to inform you about what's happening with the blog now that the film's out.

In short, it'll still be running, but not at nearly the same level of regularity as it has been. There are a number of factors: the first being burnout. I and others have been working hard on the site, and I'd rather slow to an easy pace than crash into a wall at high-speed. Another is more insidious: my general opinion of the film itself. As I said in my review, I, uh, had problems with it. The fact that I had such problems with it led to a sort of crisis, as I felt I had spent so much time and energy on a film that I feel didn't deserve the effort. I felt angry, insulted and ultimately depressed. Now that I've learned the film hasn't exactly been doing gangbusters over the weekend, I feel a great draining of energy.

Nonetheless, I'm not beaten: I just need to pick my battles, as it were. Future posts on the CMB will either be short links posted on a regular basis, as seen above, or longer ones posted irregularly. I don't want to use a schedule, as there can be no telling when news will come and at what saturation, but I hope the community which has emerged in the past few years will mean there's always something for new visitors each day, be it in the comments or forums.

It might interest you all to know that we recently reached a significant milestone, passing 1,000,000 individual views yesterday. The film might not be doing great, but the blog's chugging along for now. I couldn't have done it without you all, and although the film wasn't what I was hoping it to be, I couldn't be more overwhelmed at the community that's flocked around it. You are the vital spark which kept me galvanized, even through the disappointments, trials and tribulations. For that, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Well, let's not get all maudlin: coming up, I'm putting together a pool of the best reviews - not in terms of how well/poorly they rate the film, but in terms of insight, perspective and eloquence, that they might help us look at the film from a different perspective. Until then, keep on clicking: maybe we'll get another 2 million before we're done!
Read the full article on the blog.

Conan VFX

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:27:13 +0000

We posted a couple of reels from Conan.

Be warned, there are spoilers there if you haven't seen the film.

http://wwfx.net/reel.php

Conan the Barbarian: A Critique

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 06:09:44 +0000

I've offered my general opinion of the film, but due to the nature of film reviews, I decided to stay away from delving into the details of the story and characters. I'm not overly concerned with spoilers myself, but I recognize others are, so I respected their choices, and made the review as spoiler-free as I could manage.

This, however, is a different animal altogether. If you want to go into the film completely unspoiled, I suggest you wait until after viewing to read this. This critique is going to go through the entire film, analysing every bit and piece I consider worthy of discussion, observation and, when it comes down to it, praise and criticism. Sometimes I'll be delving into real nitpicking territory - things like pronunciations, spellings, city names, things like that - but hey, that's what I do. You have been warned, serious esoterica Hyboriana ahead. As such, it's very long, close to 20,000 words, but keep in mind that even given its length, this is me condensing. If anyone questions why I'm wasting my time dissecting a "dumb action movie" when all you want is "swords, sex and sorcery," then I'm afraid you and I are just very different people.

In my review, I was carefully attempting to keep a balance of respectfulness and optimism, because of this. But here, I think it's fairer for me to be frank and blunt. I figure the filmmakers don't want me to be insincere and fawn over a film I hate, they want to know what I really think (and if they do want an insincere fawn, then they're not getting it), because as long as I'm constructive, I hope that this might serve as an example to what the film did right and wrong, what would be great in future adaptations, and what wouldn't be.

From my point of view, of course.

Read the full article on the blog.

Another Conan review from a Howard fan

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:35 +0000

As seems to be the case in most fandoms, there can be disagreement. Even today, there is disagreement about the 1982 film: some like it for its own cinematic merits, others think it's a colossally pretentious bore, and still others think it's just bad. So I had it in mind that other Howard fans might have entirely different opinions on the film. Well, a dissenting review of the upcoming Conan film by Robert E. Howard superfan and scholar Dennis McHaney has been posted on his site, and while he and I agree on some things, he has a far more positive reaction.

One of my Robert E. Howard Forum Cromrades, Amsterdamaged, brought up this excellent point (as mentioned by my fellow REHupan Jeffrey Shanks, who also offered his preliminary thoughts on the film):

When you consider the fact that over 20 years the major studios unequivocably sided with the Arnold fans and failed to even consider greenlighting a film without Arnold attached, it’s amazing that this film was ever made. Even if, at the end of the day, the general consensus is that this film is a critical failure, don’t underestimate the significance of this event. If it’s even a modest box office success (and I think it’s going to be more than modest; the momentum seems to be building and I predict it will close out the weekend at #1), it will have broken the stranglehold that Arnold has had over the character for nearly 30 years. Audiences will get used to the idea that Conan is a character, not just a vehicle for Arnold, and so will studios, and that will pave the way for (hopefully) more faithful adaptations in the future.

I must agree, it's a great point, and it's a point central to Dennis' review. There aren't any spoilers, so you can click without worrying.

Read the full article on the blog.

Conan the Barbarian: The Conan Movie Blog Review

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:46:45 +0000

Well Cromrades, you knew it was coming, and it is: I have seen Conan the Barbarian, and I have thoughts on it. Many, many thoughts.

This was always going to be a very difficult review to write. I have so much invested in the character of Conan, the work of his creator Robert E. Howard, and any future adaptations that hinge on this film. The reception and gross of this film is vital to the productions of Kull of Atlantis, Dark Agnes, Bran Mak Morn, Vultures, Pigeons from Hell, and who knows how many other Howard creations are in the pipeline. If the film does well, then we might finally get what Howard fans want most in a Robert E. Howard adaptation: Robert E. Howard.

While I’m always aware that I’m a big fan at heart, and it isn’t as if my word can make or break a production. But I am aware that what I say matters, and that I make a difference – the extent of that difference not immediately clear or quantifiable, but definitely present. I’m keenly aware of my responsibility for my words to be said with the utmost care.

As such, I’m going to write both a review and a critique: the review is the general, broad opinion of the film based on my reaction, with no real delving into plot, character or story details. The critique will deal with much more in-depth analysis, which would naturally mean every other aspect of the film. Those wanting to wait until they’ve seen the film to make a judgement would be advised only to read the review, and wait until after viewing for the critique.

As of this moment, I'm still putting the finishing touches on my review, so as a taster, here's the capsule:

Conan the Barbarian (2011) is better than I was expecting in some respects, and worse than I was anticipating in others. On pure cinematic merits, it is not as successful as the 1982 film or Solomon Kane, but it is not quite as heinous as Conan the Destroyer or Kull the Conqueror either. In terms of adapting Robert E. Howard's creation, it's only marginally more faithful than any of its predecessors, just in different respects. Jason Momoa, with the right director, script and story, could be a fine interpretation of Howard's Conan: there are brief, wonderful moments in the film where I momentarily forgot what film I was watching, and he's definitely closer to REH than Arnold's ever was. The basic story is still pathetic, some of the effects are simply atrocious, and there's no thematic core, philosophy or subtlety to speak of - on the other hand, the natural scenery of Bulgaria is a joy to behold, some of the effects are surprisingly solid, and there's a pervasive sense of enthusiasm from the cast that can be woefully lacking in these sorts of films. In short, some parts better, some parts worse, but overall, much as how I expected it to end up.

UPDATE: Now for the review itself. Click on, if you dare...

Read the full article on the blog.

Reviews, as they come in

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:14:27 +0000

One of the first, and quite negative at that:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/a...vably_awf/

Another two short ones:

http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/vie...&s=Reviews

News roundup: Jason Momoa, Tyler Bates, Rose McGowan, and glorious Conan poster

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:10:56 +0000

In this Associated Press interview, Jason (quite rightly) addresses the Arnold question by bringing up Sean Connery and Daniel Craig both being awesome James Bonds, and Jack Nicholson & Heath Ledger being fantastic Jokers, which is exactly the sort of thing people should keep in mind:

After the break we have more interviews, including a tantalizing glimpse of the best poster for this film I've seen yet. But the only way forward is through the gates of the silver click...

Read the full article on the blog.