Conan the Barbarian Remake

Montana Smith

Active member
Lawsuit demands the rights to Conan 'flop'

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/23082011/35/lawsuit-demands-rights-conan-0.html

Lawsuit demands the rights to Conan


Tue 23 Aug 1:12 PM

by Michael Edwards

The 'Conan the Barbarian' reboot flopped on its opening weekend, but somebody still loves him, because Stan Lee Media Inc. have filed a lawsuit to try and wrestle rights to the character from owners Paradox Entertainment.


Stan Lee Media Inc. (SLMI), the company founded by comics legend Stan Lee but now operating independently of the ex-Marvel maestro, is in the process of reassembling itself after a messy bankruptcy in 2001.

This particular lawsuit, filed the day that 'Conan The Barbarian' hit US cinemas, claims that the transfer of Conan is invalid because its bankruptcy lawyers did not give SLMI and its shareholders the chance to oppose the transfer and protect their interests.

Paradox have spent the last ten years bringing the Conan brand back to the public eye in a series of comics, a game and, finally, the new film, and are therefore unlikely to give up without a fight.

Speaking to Deadline, Paradox general counsel Fred Fierst commented:

"Since acquiring the Conan intellectual property, Paradox has spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars perfecting its worldwide trademark and copyright registration program, and we stand firmly behind our chain of title.

?At this time we believe that the allegations against Paradox and its CEO are frivolous, and will most likely be dismissed on statute of limitations, and other grounds."

With meagre box office returns of £6 million ($10 million) from 'Conan the Barbarian's US opening, Paradox will need to hang on to everything it can to recoup its investment. Or else hope that news of the lawsuit sparks greater public interest in the reboot.
 

The Drifter

New member
By Crom! What a shame this flopped. I haven't seen it yet, but I want to. Even if it stinks, I always have Howard's stories to fall back on. Can't go wrong with those.
 

The Drifter

New member
Well, I watched it for the first time last night.
I loved it. In my opinion is is HIGHLY more enjoyable than the Arnold films. The movie caught Howard's true Conan in a great way. The guy who played Conan did a fantastic job!
So glad to see Conan wore different types of clothing and armor in this film, just like in the stories. No where in Howard's yarns did Conan ever wear a fur-diaper. Also, glad to see Conan more fit, agile, and witty like he was in the stories, besides being a dumb, overly large caveman.
 
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Montana Smith

Active member
Just watched it.

And yes. This is Conan. Not some camp, posing Schwarzenegger, but the brutal force of nature discussed earlier.

Did it flop because the actor wasn't a household name? Because Conan is overshadowed by Arnold?

Watching the featurettes on the DVD it's evident that they hoped this was going to be the film to relaunch the franchise. Rather than just the barbarian, they showed elements of the king, the pirate, and the thief as a showcase of the character's life.

The movie went places no other Conan has gone on film - such as... I was going to post a picture, but it was too gruesome! (If you've seen it, you can probably guess the scene!)
 

phantom train

New member
I saw this latest Conan film last December (on DVD) and thought it was superb; great action, story, and effects. I also felt it was much truer to the Conan character than any of the '80's AS films.

Great sequences included:

- The beginning battle scene with the young Conan and the Picts?! Excellent (though quite graphic), and definitely set the pace for the rest of the film.

- The daughter of the evil wizard was quite creepy.

- The battle scene with Conan and the sand creatures was fantastic.

All in all, an amazing film; it reminded me quite a bit of both the original REH Conan novels, as well as the iconic Conan the Barbarian comic (Marvel comics) from back in the day.

Too bad it didn't do better @ the box office; one of the reasons may have been that there were so many blockbuster films coming out last summer (i.e. Thor, X-Men: First Class, Captain America, etc.) that it just couldn't compete with all of them.
 
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The Drifter

New member
The opening bit with the Picts was the only thing that bothered me. I love that they included them, but in one of Howard's yarns ( going by memory, it was in Phoenix On the Sword, I believe) Conan stated that he earned his manhood by slaying a wild Cimmerian bull with his barehands, not by his clan having a race with keeping an egg intact in thier mouths.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
The Drifter said:
The opening bit with the Picts was the only thing that bothered me. I love that they included them, but in one of Howard's yarns ( going by memory, it was in Phoenix On the Sword, I believe) Conan stated that he earned his manhood by slaying a wild Cimmerian bull with his barehands, not by his clan having a race with keeping an egg intact in thier mouths.

I found the reference to the "Cimmerian bull" in Shadows in Zamboula.


Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel.

?You fool!? he all but whispered. ?I think you never saw a man from the West before. Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown man ? like this!?

And with a savage wrench he twisted Baal-pteor's head around until the ghastly face leered over the left shoulder, and the vertebrae snapped like a rotten branch.


The 2011 film admitted they played around with Conan's biography, which most movies do when they tackle a literary or comic character - sometimes creating a virtually new character in the process.

I can forgive them in this case, since they really captured the essence of Conan as I remember him from Howard's stories.

On a side note, I don't think I've ever seen the great Ron Perlman appear more Neandtherthal than he does in this. Not even as Hellboy!
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
The Drifter said:
By Crom! What a shame this flopped. I haven't seen it yet, but I want to. Even if it stinks, I always have Howard's stories to fall back on. Can't go wrong with those.

It deserved to flop. I happened to see this a few months back on DVD, and was bitterly disappointed in the wasted casting of Jason Mamoa. No, not miscast, wasted. Here you had an actor who was clearly right for the role, and ended up being betrayed by the writers and producers.

I was reminded of this earlier today while finishing up the second season of Game of Thrones. After seeing the Great Khal again, I was reminded of why I thought he was an excellent choice -- he could do "primal" quite well.

Khal%20Drogo%20Wedding.jpg


So it should have been a slam dunk, right? Yes, it should have been. However, the bits that were meant to suggest Conan's experiences in the world at large, were poorly utilized. His time as a corsair should have been left to another picture, and his skills as a thief could have been integrated into the overall story instead of relying upon a poor bit of comedic relief.

The bits phantom train mentioned were fantastic, but a movie is greater than the sum of a couple of action sequences. Focus is, of course, paramount; the lack of it combined with poor box office returns means that it'll be a ve-ry, ve-ry long time before Conan ever hits theatres again.

I posted this earlier in a link. Check it out. While it's something of a spoiler, it explicitly depicts what Jason Mamoa could have channeled if the creative team hadn't let him down.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/e_YYwycw8BE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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