What is best in lifespan ? Seeing a classic brand - and - black art fighter fetch to the big screen , with an iconic musclebuilder in the lead theatrical role . But how did Robert E. Howard ’s Conan the Barbarian become such a classic picture ? The path to aureole was prospicient and twisted . Here ’s everything you never knew about the fashioning of Conan .
For all its C of imitators , John Milius ’ 1982 fantasy heroic Conan the Barbarian is unique . The result of a golden merging of musclebound star , gonzo director , zeitgeisty appeal and gloriously pulpy source material , it ’s the prototype for the sword and sorcery sub - genre of phantasy that took LXXX cinema by storm .
Taking Howard ’s original floor and infusing them with Milius ’ Nietzsche - inspire might - makes - ripe philosophy and warriorlike influence , it ’s a brutal and occasionally almost pensive art object of employment that actually learn its depicted object seriously — even if the audience ca n’t always do the same . That very distressfulness is one of the reason it continues to inspire discussion to this Clarence Day .
send away as neo - fascist posturing by some , hailed as mythmaking at its most viciously refined by others , and enjoy as grade A schlock by many , Conan the Barbarian is as enduring a part of the cult canon as you ’d wait from a moving picture that features Arnie taking a collation out of a vulture while nailed to a tree diagram .
Writing/Conception
Edward R. Pressman , new off producing films like Badlands and Phantom of the Paradise , first became interested in the Conan fiber in 1975 . printer and his friend Edward Summer — future associate manufacturer on the movie — were watching a rasping snub of the bodybuilding docudrama Pumping Iron . Pressman , intrigue by Arnold Schwarzenegger ’s screen comportment , question aloud about the possibility of do a film build around the human special effect that was Arnie at the clip . Summer now indicate an adaption of Robert Howard ’s Conan stories .
As Pressman explain in Conan unchain :
“ He ( Summer ) took me to his comic book stock and depict me the world of Frank Frazetta and the world of Conan which , at that pointedness , I was not familiar with . That start out me on a journeying , first to get the rights and , at the same time , meeting Arnold . Together , we expend close to five years taste to get the film dress up . ”
Pressman contacted Schwarzenegger about the use , sending him the comics and the Frazetta paintings to try and gyrate him in . Schwarzenegger , while intrigued by the material , was still hesitating . But the pair at long last meet typeface - to - face in 1977 at a restaurant on the Sunset Strip , and Pressman convert him to take the theatrical role . This was the growth Pressman had been hold back for . He exact the project to Paramount Pictures , who offered him an initial budget of $ 2.5 million if he would hire a “ name film writer ” to shape on a script .
Oliver Stone ’s agentive role introduce the two men and , upon read an early draft of his hand for Platoon , Pressman became convinced that Stone was the man for the occupation . A first muster had already been written by Summer and Marvel Comics scribe Roy Thomas but it was Stone ’s script that get under one’s skin the projection moving .
The ambitious untried Stone approached the film as the first of twelve project stories , envision Schwarzenegger deliver every twelvemonth or two to do a new one a la the James Bond franchise . His first draft was very loosely free-base on two of Howard ’s Conan stories , “ A beldam Shall Be Born ” and “ Black Colossus . ” He had a strong sake in genetics and cloning at the time – “ it made sense , right ? ” – and , in keeping with that obsession , populate the story with armies of mutation and genetic freaks , positing Conan ’s savage world as a far succeeding Earth ravaged by nuclear fire . His storytelling had the feel of a fever dream , a calibre undoubtedly exacerbated by Stone ’s lumbering drug use at the time . Pressman account the handwriting as “ hell on Earth , ” something consanguine to Dante ’s Inferno . unluckily , this handwriting would have cost an enormous $ 40 million to produce , money that studio were antipathetic to part with .
Meanwhile , Pressman was experiencing difficulties finding a manager . Stone , who had always require to direct , was briefly look at as an choice to co - lineal alongside Joe Alves , an FX human beings and second unit director on Jaws 2 . Alan Parker ’s name was brought up at one point . Eventually , Stone and Pressman went to London to court Ridley Scott for the director ’s death chair . Scott turned them down and they were so discourage that , upon get a line that famous pulp / genre manufacturer Dino De Laurentiis was staying at the next hotel over , decide to come on him with the property so he could take it off their hands . De Laurentiis like the playscript ( despite mean it was too violent ) and , after an extensive period of negotiations , bought it and took over control of funding and production . Pressman retained a co - producer credit and approval rights over changes to the script , cast and crew .
De Laurentiis used his clout to pitch the project successfully to Universal Pictures , but concerns about the violent and outré ( read : expensive ) elements of Stone ’s script remained . Ever the out - of - the - box seat thinker , De Laurentiis decided to border on John Milius – writer of the ultraviolent Dirty Harry and Magnum Force – to aim the film and rework the screenplay . Milius had already show interest in the labor but remained wary , given the over - the - top nature of Stone ’s first order of payment . Finally , spurred on by his friend Ron Cobb , he agreed to join the project on the condition that he be allow to rewrite the screenplay to reflect his own distinctive interests .
Milius was already infamous in Hollywood as one of the most iconoclastic of the New Hollywood film terror . An avid surfer and adrenaline junkie , he was also obsessed with Nipponese culture , in particular its more militaristic aspect . A big fan of films like Seven Samurai and Kwaidan , he worked much of their aesthetic into his piece of work on Conan . The latter picture show , for example , was the inspiration for the paint symbols and angry ghosts that appear in Conan ’s post - crucifixion resurrection rite .
Milius keep back many scenes from the first one-half of Stone ’s draft – the Tree of Woe , the Tower of Set sequence – but cast away the mutant - heavy 2d half . His personal ‘ survival of the fittest ’ school of thought inform much of what he brought to the unexampled screenplay , include the elongated prologue depicting Conan ’s phylogenesis from weedy kid to grain - grinder to muscle warrior . While working on the script , Milius had one group of investigator grok up material on ancient craze and another compiling information on early weapon and their usage . Milius and Ron Cobb wanted a consistent and comparatively believable Earth and , to this end , studied Celtic and Nordic design and history in ordering to picture the cultural violence that had shape them . In other words : what might the world have look like a millenary or two before the Celts and Nords as we know them ?
Influences
The character of Conan first come along in the furore cartridge clip Weird Tales , in Robert E. Howard ’s 1932 story ‘ The Phoenix and the Sword . ”
output designer Ron Cobb , who worked on Star Wars ( 1977 ) , Alien ( 1979 ) and Raiders of the Lost Ark ( 1981 ) , enounce that he did n’t want to be too explicit in bear witness diachronic influence :
“ I ’ve tried to woolgather up numerous stylization , draw on everything from Quetzalcoatl to Egyptian symbology and many other designs . I ’ve then commingle , refined and restate those design all throughout the picture , applying them when necessary . This has ensue in a fair amount of that design history being obscured to the viewer , and to me too , for that matter . That ’s interesting , that much of the symbology I ’m applying has become a mystery even to me . I think it ’s much more important , in the sense of conception , to be as original and consistent as possible in this picture and to evoke a sentience of mystery and purpose , rather than spell everything out . I do n’t think that kind of underlining is really necessary . ”
Cobb said he savour “ being able to create a realistic , believable prehistoric culture . ”
Milius was a great rooter of fabled fantasy artist Frank Frazetta ’s paintings of Conan and his world . “ [ Frazetta ’s ] certainly been a terrific inspiration to all of us … He ’s the high non-Christian priest of Conan , and he has been more important to me than the Conan books were . ”
Neither John Milius nor Ron Cobb know much about Conan when they took on the movie . As Cobb say Cinefantastique ’s Paul Sammon : “ in sure case it really is good , if you ’re filming a pre - existing character , not to have had any anterior experience with him . Neither John nor I really cognise much about Conan before we begin this . [ … ] If drop dead - strong Conan fans were doing this word picture , I think it would suffer from a more narrow point of opinion . ”
Milius did his research , though , read much of Howard ’s oeuvre before filming . He tells Sammon : “ Howard is not a writer that I would say was going to be influential on my body of work for the rest period of my aliveness — he ’s not Melville or Conrad — but he had some groovy paradigm and visions … Most importantly , Howard and I share the same view of civilization . Which is , to put it mildly , a extremely sceptical one . ”
lastly , Milius also incorporated bits and pieces from post - Howard Conan story and comic strip . For case , the setting in which Conan finds his steel in the tomb of a long - dead Atlantean king is take in from L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter ’s “ The affair in the Crypt . ”
Casting:
Schwarzenegger was the only one who had already been throw up before Milius was hired . He really slimmed down from his musclebuilder ’s flesh for the function of Conan , taking up swim and running . Schwarzenegger loved playing Conan , telling Cinefantastique ’s Sammon : “ One of the lineament of movie acting is that it let you to recreate . And it ’s fun to swing over a brand and see someone expire in a gush of blood . This is like being a kid and playing Cowboys and Indians all over again . ”
In those days before his superstardom , Schwarzenegger praised Milius for his then - unusual molding choices : “ Milius is the only guy who would hire me and Gerry and Sandahl for [ Conan] … The majority of directors would have only looked at those doer who were bankable . Someone else , for example , might have picked Charles Bronson and then just rewritten the playscript , pick up Conan from the sentence he was 40 . I think that picking us took an enormous amount of braveness on John ’s part . ”
harmonize to Milius , many of the roles were given to novice actors because their appearance and personalities lined up with the part . The director vagabond his prospicient - sentence browse buddy Gerry Lopez as Subotai the thief . “ I remember when I was draw for this purpose , all the people who came in appear like Gerry , ” say Milius on the videodisk comment . “ So I thought why not just get Gerry ? ”
Lopez tell Sammon : “ John and I have one thing strongly in common . We both grew up in phantasy worldly concern , of war and warriors , and we ’ve both managed to hold those things through to adulthood . ” Like James Earl Jones , Lopez find a parallel for his character in veridical - world history . “ [ Subotai ] happened to be Genghis Khan ’s with child general during the subjugation of the Middle East and Europe … John and I see Conan ’s Subotai as a forerunner of the great Subotai of Genghis Khan ’s time . ” Lopez appears to do a creditable line of work in the motion-picture show but was , nonetheless , knight over in post - production by Nipponese actor Sab Shimono .
Milius wanted to draw a dancer as Valeria , and ended up choose Sandahl Bergman on the testimonial of Bob Fosse , who had directed her in All That wind . Like Schwarzenegger , Bergman enjoyed the animalism of the part , telling Sammon : “ All this hacking and stabbing is great merriment . It ’s also given [ the cast ] a prospect to learn a grand variety of soldierlike arts . ” But Bergman said she took the part because of how much she care the script : “ It ’s a great piece of work . Very theatrical , almost like stage play . And I interrelate to the character of Valeria very much , because my own personal life has been a conflict . Like Valeria , out of all this upheaval thaumaturgy has hap . ”
Schwarzenegger ’s bodybuilding colleague Sven Ole Thorsen was signed as Thulsa Doom ’s hammer - wielding lieutenant Thorgrim .
Given the presence of so many relative newcomers , Milius want to chuck some veterans opposite them to provide inspiration and pointers . Sterling Hayden and John Huston were deliberate for the purpose of King Osric but notable Swedish actor and frequent De Laurentiis partner Max von Sydow was finally sign . The Japanese actor Mako Iwamatsu was cast as the wizard on the strength of his extensive experience in film and theater . The use of Conan ’s father move to William Smith , a veteran soldier of the biker movie genre that Milius had part his screenwriting life history in .
Sean Connery was in the running to toy Thulsa Doom , but James Earl Jones — new off a mainstream success as the articulation of Darth Vader — was cast instead .
Jones found the character of Thulsa Doom , warlord and leader of the Cult of Set , interesting because he saw parallels between Doom and real - existence cult personalities like Jim Jones and Charles Manson . He tells Paul Sammon of Cinefantastique :
“ Knowing John [ Milius ] , I ’m sure those line of latitude are knowing . But I jump at the opportunity to play Doom because he ’s not a toon character . Let me explicate that . You see , I always require to play John Gardner ’s Grendel , but then I heard they were going to do it as an animated feature . That was a great letdown . So when I heard that Conan was going to be a live - activeness feature article and read the playscript , I gladly admit the part of Doom . He ’s human and very complex . ”
Stunt coordinator and 2nd - unit director Terry Leonard say that finding doubles for the physically enforce Schwarzenegger prove to be a problem . Leonard praise the cast for their forcible stamina , saying that “ all these multitude , Sandahl with her dancing , Arnold with his weights and Gerry with his surfing , are humans - class champion athlete , and they ’re doing an incredible job on the film … The strong-arm restriction only arrive in when you think about the fact that you ’re just not going to find anyone in the humankind to replicate Arnold . particularly when he ’s in a loin fabric . ”
Production
Ron Cobb had originally scouted fix in Yugoslavia but political uncertainties following the last of Marshal Tito made filming there a risky proposition . Spain , the backup choice , proved to be a more naturalistic option , not least because resource were more easily available . Spanish twist crews swing into natural process , build most of the required sets in a elephantine warehouse outside Madrid . A few interiors were also built inside an idle aircraft hangar on a Spanish military base . Forty - nine sets were built in total .
A number of toy were built by Spanish theoretical account - maker Emilio Ruiz , including the Tower of Set , the city of Shadizar , and the rook of King Osric . Both Cobb and Milius were loth to use lustrelessness painting , hold them unrealistic . With Ruiz ’s aid , several set were mask and extended with hanging miniature , with a few others work up as models . A $ 350,000 chunk of the $ 3 million budget for sets was spent construct Thulsa Doom ’s Temple of Set on a Spanish mountainside . build mostly of forest in anticipation of its fiery end , it was 65 feet high and 150 ft retentive , with concrete foundations to bear the weight of the thousands of extras it would have to sustain .
Due to an specially dry Spanish winter , or so $ 80,000 Charles Frederick Worth of marble shavings had to be go around over the Seth of the Conan ’s childhood Cimmerian Greenwich Village to copy snow . The exercise set was build in the mountains beyond Segovia . The hardened dresser and design teams went above and beyond in this elbow room on several occasions , to the point that the orgy coiffure where Conan and ship’s company present an attack on Thulsa Doom had an actual dose snow leopard present .
The first scene to be take ( on January 7 , 1981 ) was of Conan fight off a pack of wolves , and also let in the first of the turbulent shoot ’s many accidents . One of the dogs stand in for the wolf , trained to set on an animal - skin Schwarzenegger was wearing , got a little over - enthusiastic about its function , pushing the actor off a ten - foot drop-off and into a briar patch . Schwarzenegger ’s heftiness and reflexes write him from getting more than a few scratch and contusion . Arnold was also subsequently graze in the neck by an axe - head that broke off its handle during a battle . The lead scab had to be covered up with extra make - up .
Sandahl Bergman was also injured during filming . While practise a fight , she parried a blow from an opponent ’s steel only to have her forefinger slice up open to the bone because her weapon was escape its handgrip guard . The combat injury postulate six stitches , despite being inflicted by a fiber - methamphetamine hydrochloride prop weapon .
injury notwithstanding , stunt coordinator Terry Leonard confirms that not only did Schwarzenegger , Bergman and Lopez do most of their own stunts , they did so admirably and with great stoicism . Schwarzenegger recall that Milius ’ standard morale - boost refrain ( in keeping with his personal philosophy ) was that physical pain was temporary , but the resulting film would be permanent . The trinity trained extensively with black belt and expert swordsman Kiyoshi Yamazaki who forced them to practice routines over a XII times before allowing them to step in front of a photographic camera .
The strong-arm aspect of the performance was not the only focus of attention . Schwarzenegger had considerable trouble minimize his chummy Austrian stress and delivering his line of credit with the required effectiveness . He and Milius reckon they could do little about the dialect , but proceeded to forge hard on the specificities of channel delivery . They would retire to Milius ’ trailer every day before tiffin and practise the longer monologues over and over , until Schwarzenegger could trust the suitable cadences and stresses to storage . By the time he deliver them on camera , he had rehearsed each speech forty or fifty times . Schwarzenegger also received some supporter from stage actor James Earl Jones , who march line of business interpret options for him in replication for workout point .
Milius also bear through much of the shoot . His severe bronchial asthma flared up consistently on fix and the yield was continually beset by cold , rain and bugs . Weeks into filming , he clashed with director of photography Gil Taylor ( who had also , magnificently , push with Lucas on the solidification of Star Wars ) and fired him with “ utmost prejudice , ” replacing him with Duke Callaghan .
As the doer fag to come in the proceedings with humanity and energy , and the located designers and mental synthesis crews worked to allow for a decently thought out backdrop to those timbre , the peculiar effects team maintain maximum ingeniousness to augment the ‘ world ’ of the Hyperborean setting by just the veracious amount .
The ill-famed Tree of Woe scene was shoot in March 1981 on the sandy coastline of Almeria . The tree diagram itself was put together by case a framework of Natalie Wood and steel in layer of Styrofoam and sticking plaster . It could be rotate on a lazy Susan , allowing for ocular continuity with respect to the surrounding shadow over the three days of cinematography . Schwarzenegger was made to sit down on an attached cycle seat with faux nails stuck to his wrists and ankles . bouncy vulture were tie to the tree diagram leg while a mechanical one was provided for him to bite into , its control mechanism concealed by the tree diagram .
extra core executive program Nick Allder had antecedently won an Oscar for his body of work on Alien ( 1977 ) . He plan the 36 - foot foresightful hydraulic snake for the panorama in the Temple of Set where Conan battle a gargantuan serpent in a sacrificial cavity . The snake could rear 12 feet off the priming coat , and interpose KY jelly venom out of its fang . It be approximately 20,000 Syrian pound .
Allder aver of his creation : “ I was think over over the skeletal structure of a snake one day when I had an inspiration ; why not substitute each of the muscles which would normally be attached to a skeleton with a cable system ? … this way we ’d be able-bodied to come up up with a naturalistic movement it had been very hard to achieve in the past on this type , and size of it , of animal . And I think it come out well … It ’s also very strong ; you could put a full - grown homo on the cervix just behind the head and it would still be able to stand up . ”
The transformation succession in which Thulsa Doom turns into a snake was one of the more intricate scrap of trickery the FX squad had to perform . James Earl Jones ’ head was immobilized in position for the establishing shot and yellow contacts were inserted in his eye to suggest the onset of transfiguration . Once that shot was completed , the histrion was supervene upon with a skeletal framework that had a rubber mold of Jones ’ face covering it . A Hydra - head - regulate puppet was then bear on through the model and against the mask , suggest that Doom ’s facial structure was changing . The flow of the chronological sequence was improved by splicing in footage of actual snakes and filmed illumination , and through the use of a lap dissolve proficiency .
The plentiful gore effects were managed by Carlo De Marchis , the makeup effects supervisor , and Colin Arthur ( former studio headway of Madame Tussauds ) . They designed and progress dummies that were used to bulk out crowd scene and stand in as idle trunk . They also fashioned the fake body portion that bestow such character to the film ’s brutal fight scenes .
The most gruesome result filmed was the beheading of Conan ’s mother by Thulsa Doom . Milius , however , edited the scene down , fearing that the full version would attract an X rating . In the original version , there is a closeup of the head lie on the primer coat , spouting stemma , its eyes and back talk moving erratically via the use of cable hidden in the nose candy . The version observe in the moving-picture show is less graphic and arguably more effective . It was shot by placing a Plexiglas shield between Jones and Nadiuska ( the German actress who play Conan ’s female parent ) , stopping his blade as he swung at her . A faux head was then cast off into the jibe . The other major beheading scene come at the death as Conan kills Thulsa Doom . This chronological succession was comparatively childlike to shoot : Schwarzenegger just hacked at a dummy and yanked a concealed mountain range to detach its head .
A lot of the blood point on screen was collected from slaughterhouses . The arterial spurts splashing out of the cast during the fight fit came from bags strapped to them under their costumes . Several of the fibreglass property swords also had tubes running through them , allowing them to barf blood from their tips . These easy trick blade were loosely used in the various ‘ kill scenery ’ while heavier , more authentic - looking carbon steel alternatives were convey by Schwarzenegger during the filming of less high-risk sequences .
Music
Milius hired his friend Basil Poledouris to compose the score . The two had crop together originally on Big Wednesday . Milius brought Poledouris on before filming had even lead off , make them time to discuss the emotional overtones that were right for the sexual conquest . He asked Poledouris to start body of work based on the storyboards and to call recording the music once production was winding down .
The composer write “ two hours of medicine for Conan , ” he tell Starlog in 1982 . “ It was always in John ’s mind that Conan would be solid music — much like an opera . . . . From the first frame of Virginia reel one to the end of the Wheel of Pain sequence , somewhere in the middle of reel three , is one foresightful cue without any break . I was terrified when I first actualize that . ”
Once filming was complete , Milius gave Poledouris two tapes of the finished film , one without euphony and the other with selection from the workplace of Wagner , Stravinsky and Prokofiev . Poledouris was intimidated by the panorama of having to compare favorably to these legendary composer , but soon found his groove once he realized that their workplace was just intended by Milius as an aesthetic starting point .
Conan ’s personal base – “ The Riddle of Steel ” – get down as a introductory melodic line of products mark to a poem , written as if the composer was Conan ’s bard . The fundamental melody was later filled out with an larger-than-life dose of brass , string and pleximetry . The main musical melodic theme , the “ Anvil of Crom , ” is just as muscular , described by motion-picture show music historian Laurence MacDonald as “ the gaudy sound of twenty - four Gallic horns in a dramatic intonation of the melody , while ram down drums bring an incessantly beat back rhythmic actuation . ”
For the medicine that was to accompany Thulsa Doom ’s opening night onrush on Conan ’s hamlet , Milius want a chorus base on Carl Orff ’s Carmina Burana . However , after discovering that Excalibur ( 1981 ) had already used Orff ’s work , he asked Poledouris for original material . The answer consists of choral passages chanted by Doom ’s age bracket as a tribute to his name . Poledouris wrote the lyrics in English and had them crudely translate into Latin , as he was “ more implicated about the way the Latin words sounded than with the sense they really made . ” The lyric poem were after set to a melody adjust from the thirteenth - century Gregorian anthem , Dies Irae , chosen to “ communicate the tragic aspects of the cruelty wrought by Thulsa Doom . ”
The final mark is still one of the most celebrated compositions written for movie , praise even by the movie ’s detractors . It catapult Poledouris ’ career to great heights and retains its status as one of the basic templates for larger-than-life fantasy score , frequently imitated but rarely equalise .
Reception
The film ’s reception at the clock time was decidedly interracial . Even some of the positive reviews were moderately backhanded , withRoger Ebert ’s review — three stars notwithstanding — dubbing it “ the utter fantasy for the alienated preadolescent . ” The New York Post and The LA Times recommend the film , the latter claiming that “ Conan the Barbarian does for the epic heroic poem what Star Wars does did for space fantasy . ”
Some of the more disconfirming brushup , such asDavid Denby ’s , single out the film ’s action scenes as their redeeming quality , while others focus on state violence as the most offensive thing about it . Some , likeVincent Canbyof The New York Times , feel that it was n’t violent enough , given the source material . Others find the brutality unbearable . Richard Schickel of Time Magazinecalled it“a psychopathic Star Wars,”David Stearrittof The Christian Science Monitor complained that it was more “ Neanderthal than Nietzsche , ” and Newsday ’s Joseph Gelmis much ignore it as “ lenient - effect pornography . ”
The film ’s perceive political sympathies disembowel as much as criticism as the force . Many critics and commentator , include Schickel , James Wolcott ( indite for Texas Monthly ) , J. Hoberman and many others , think it to be a thin veiled fascist polemic that valorized force over all else , a celebration of the Nietzschean nonsuch of the Aryan ubermensch .
Subsequent years , however , have been much tolerant to the film . The seriousness with which it takes the origin fabric has been celebrated as a welcome deviation from the derisory Malva sylvestris that characterise so many sword and sorcery film at the time . AsZack Handlen of The AV Clubput it in a 2011 appreciation , “ this is fantasy , but the squat is real . ” The uniformly high production values – the ingenious practical effect , the makeup , the filmmaking guile on video display – all draw continued admiration .
Contemporary consultation have also picked up on the picture show ’s sense of humour , repeatable dialogue , pulpy zip and here and now of clique ingathering . Conan the Barbarian accept itself seriously , but not to the dot of forgetting what kind of movie it is . As a result , the decennary since its release have seen numerous protection being paid to it by contemporary critic and viewing audience . As of now , the motion picture is firmly ( and deservedly ) established as a dear religious cult classic .
Legacy
Conan the Barbarian is now wide recognise as the gold banner for the sword and sorcery subgenre . It spawned Word of God , comics , an animatronic show at Universal Studios and a wave of low budget knockoffs — from The Beastmaster to Gor — that proved a blight on movie screens throughout the 80s . It was also one of the few such movies to turn a healthy gain , debuting at number one at the US box federal agency , taking in almost $ 10 million on its first weekend and going on to gross over $ 100 million worldwide .
The picture show is arguably a major factor behind Robert Howard ’s creation being as visible and well known as it is today , expanding the fanbase beyond readers of the original works . The winner of the pic inspired a tremendous , watered down 1984 subsequence – Conan the Destroyer – as well as a 2011 reimagining star Jason Momoa . hearsay have swirl for years that Schwarzenegger will come back for a new sequel style The Legend of Conan , and it ’s finally begin to await like that undertaking may actually accomplish fruition .
Curiously , the film may even have had an indirect hand in the creation of the Masters of the Universe franchise as Mattel bought the toy dog right to Conan but later give up the license , thanks to the flick ’s graphic violence . Despite this , the Masters of the Universe line of toys that followed soon after bear great resemblance to Howard ’s introduction as popularize by Milius . Mattel won a lawsuit which formalized their title that He - Man had nothing to do with Conan , but fans remain convinced of the connectedness .
The picture show also advance ( if , in some face , temporarily ) the repute of those involved in its making . It ’s wide agnize as Milius ’ great directorial achievement . It succeed Sandahl Bergman a Golden Globe , a career high she would never again duplicate . The flick ’s music made Basil Poledouris ’ career and continues to be held up as a perfect exemplar of a rousing heroic score . Poledouris would go on to produce many memorable piles , particularly over the course of his keep up collaboration with Paul Verhoeven on film like RoboCop and Starship Troopers .
Perhaps most significant was the photographic film ’s effect on the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger . It was a turn point for Arnie , establish him worldwide as an action wizard , prompting the world to perceive him as a movie star more than a bodybuilder . The event of that shift in sensing are known to all as Schwarzenegger survive on to enjoy one of the most iconic life history in genre cinema .
Sources:
Conan Unchained : The Making of Conan The Barbarian documentary :
Flights of Fancy : The Great Fantasy FilmsBy Kenneth Von Gunden
DVD Commentary by Schwarzenegger , Milius et al .
Conan the Phenomenon : The Legacy of Robert E. Howard ’s Fantasy IconBy Paul Sammon
Cinefantastique Vol 11 , # 3 Nine twenty-four hour period in Cimmeriaby Paul Sammon
The Invisible artistic production of Film Music : A Comprehensive story by Laurence E. MacDonald
Hutchison , David . “ euphony for a Barbarian . ” Starlog , September 1982 .
Thomas , Tony ( 1997 ) . “ More latterly — Basil Poledouris ” . Music for the Movies
BooksConan The Barbarianepic fantasyMovies
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