I think the last time we heard about the new take on Conan the Barbarian it was in June of 2006 when Boaz Yakin was brought aboard by Warner Bros. to write and possibly direct the feature. However, that didn’t exactly work out as it is now out of WB’s hands and New Line has promptly scooped it up.
Several studios were in on the bidding and apparently the high interest is being attributed to the success of 300 because, as a rule, Hollywood must saturate the market with similar films until audiences absolutely hate them.
Warner Bros. spent seven years trying to get the film off the ground. Larry and Andy Wachowski, John Milius (who directed the original and wrote the script with Oliver Stone) and Robert Rodriguez took turns developing it. Rodriguez got closest but left the project for Grindhouse, and Boaz was the last to give it a shot.
Warner had a script but wasn’t confident in moving forward with it and isn’t too upset about the loss as they are now looking at a live-action version of “He-Man.”
Now New Line has to start from scratch as everything that has been worked on over the past seven years belongs to Warner. Have fun fellas.
