Conan the Barbarian Netflix Series In Development

Cicada 5

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Conan’s getting a show on Netflix. No, not the Death Stranding guy, the Barbarian.

Deadline reported Wednesday that Netflix has a series in development, based on the Robert Howard pulp character, adapted over the past 90 years by Marvel Comics, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others.

Deadline says Netflix reached a deal with Fredrik Malmberg, who owns companies that control both Conan Properties International and the producing studio, Pathfinder Media. Netflix gets an exclusive option to acquire and adapt rights to Conan’s literary form. The adaptations can be either live-action or animated, Deadline says.

There have been three TV adaptations of Conan to date, two of them animated, all of them beginning and ending in the 1990s. The most recent was the 1997 syndicated series Conan the Adventurer.
 

BrawlMan

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Neat. I don't mind if it's live-action or animated. So long as it's just good.
 

Ezekiel

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Hoping this means a 4K release of the original. The nine year old Blu-ray doesn't look very good.

Not really interested in a series.
 

gorfias

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Hoping this means a 4K release of the original. The nine year old Blu-ray doesn't look very good.

Not really interested in a series.
It could be fantastic but it needs to be done correctly. There are a million books and comics to build a narrative with.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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That's cool, there's plenty of source material to draw from and it can be just the right amount of sleazy and trashy to be really fun.
 

Agema

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Conan The Barbarian is one of my all time favourite movies. I even own the soundtrack.

Admittedly, Conan The Destroyer has already muddied the legacy (being the trashy B-movie Conan The Barbarian was supposed to be), but even still the prospect of a TV show sends a shiver of threat to my nostalgic pleasure for the original. Had they made the planned Conan 3 with Arnie and directed by John Milius, I'd have been sold.
 

BrawlMan

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Admittedly, Conan The Destroyer has already muddied the legacy (being the trashy B-movie Conan The Barbarian was supposed to be), but even still the prospect of a TV show sends a shiver of threat to my nostalgic pleasure for the original. Had they made the planned Conan 3 with Arnie and directed by John Milius, I'd have been sold.
Dude, it's a new show. Even if it is bad, it should not be a single threat your childhood or nostalgia. I like both Conan films. The original is the best of course. The one with Jason Mamoa was a'ight. The only other Conan related thing I can think that are just as good or enteraining as the original are non-Conan properties. The Scorpion King ( not the straight-to-DVD garbage sequels) and Kogarth of Barbaria (which wanted to be animated Conan so bad, and did not go beyond the pilot. I don't understand why Adult Swim did not fund to make more.)

I own most of the original stories in a book collection. So I am looking forward to whatever may be.
 

Agema

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Dude, it's a new show. Even if it is bad, it should not be a single threat your childhood or nostalgia.
Michael fucking Bay utterly broke The Transformers, for which he should burn in hell for tarnishing the legacy. George Lucas hammered Star Wars into a pulp using a bat studded with rusty nails.

Trust no-one with their crappy reboots.
 

BrawlMan

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Michael fucking Bay utterly broke The Transformers, for which he should burn in hell for tarnishing the legacy. George Lucas hammered Star Wars into a pulp using a bat studded with rusty nails.
Did they break you? Is the important question, because they sure as hell did not break me. Transformers is doing fine thanks to Bumblebee and the new show on Netflix. Star Wars has many problems now, even without Lucas's input. Disney flying by the seat of their pants with no plan definitely fucked things up, but at least you got" One more time, baby!" with the final season of the CGI Clone Wars.

Trust no-one with their crappy reboots.
Duh. With that said, I am not going to fall in total despair. Give things a chance. Worse to worse, I've got other options. Granted, I am not a hardcore Conan fan, but I've dabbled every now and then. Sometimes you've got to take things easy.
 

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Michael fucking Bay utterly broke The Transformers, for which he should burn in hell for tarnishing the legacy. George Lucas hammered Star Wars into a pulp using a bat studded with rusty nails.

Trust no-one with their crappy reboots.
The TV series they're planning, by definition surely, would qualify as a new adaptation rather than a reboot. Since you know, its going to be based off the Robert Howard novels.
 

Thaluikhain

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Yeah, not fussed on this. I liked the Arnie movies, but they had nothing to do with Conan, as written by Howard. Likewise the modernish reboot, which had nothing much to do with either. And, really, Howard is a bit like Lovecraft in that a lot of his stuff wouldn't or shouldn't fly today.

OTOH, the way you can say you're Lovecraftian by having tentacle monsters, you can say you're Conan by having a big guy in minimal clothes fighting monsters.

EDIT: Based on the novels? Pass.
 

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PLEASE DON'T BE AWFUL.

I've been demanding for a very good Conan series adaption for awhile, especially if its basing itself more on the original Pulp Magazine Novels.

Like Witcher certainly dodged a bullet (even though I had some gripes here or there) so please Netflix do not fuck up this one.

And I also hope the "Woke" factor doesn't take away the look, feel, and themes of the old pulp novels.
 

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And I also hope the "Woke" factor doesn't take away the look, feel, and themes of the old pulp novels.
I like the old Robert E. Howard stories too, but I think one can capture the epic sword and sorcery feeling while also doing away with the really uncomfortable racism.
 
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Samtemdo8

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I like the old Robert E. Howard stories too, but I think one can capture the epic sword and sorcery feeling while also doing away with the really uncomfortable racism.
Well the least I can say is that isn't as crazy a racist as Lovecraft.
 

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Well the least I can say is that isn't as crazy a racist as Lovecraft.
That is all he has over Lovecraft. For the record, they were pen pals and included references of each other in their works. Edgard Rice Burroughs has more over them. Burroughs had some minor racists moments with the cannibalistic Black Martians in the 2nd & 3rd Jonh Carter book at least. Though the White Martians are known as the worst morally and ethically. They actually pre-date the Nazis idea of a superior being. They were all blonde and blue eyed, but the blonde hair are wigs in the original novels anyway. The mingling of races is seen as good thing, and not portrayed as a negative, so that is a huge positive by comparison. Tarzan had plenty of racist moments; especially in the early books.
 

Thaluikhain

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That is all he has over Lovecraft. For the record, they were pen pals and included references of each other in their works. Edgard Rice Burroughs has more over them. Burroughs had some minor racists moments with the cannibalistic Black Martians in the 2nd & 3rd Jonh Carter book at least. Though the White Martians are known as the worst morally and ethically. They actually pre-date the Nazis idea of a superior being. They were all blonde and blue eyed, but the blonde hair are wigs in the original novels anyway. The mingling of races is seen as good thing, and not portrayed as a negative, so that is a huge positive by comparison. Tarzan had plenty of racist moments; especially in the early books.
Yeah, his Black Martians are less "black" as in black people and more "Well, I've done red and green and blue and white, what's some more colours?".

I'd also mention his Venus Amtor series, in which his hero visits a city run by people keen on eugenics, and the hero says it's a shame someone on Earth didn't kill all the lesser humans there ages ago. Sure, painful short term, but longer term you get a master race. Though he leaves the city fleeing for his life, but he does that everywhere he goes. Um...

A later book starts off with straw feminists, but quickly forgets that and jumps into fighting Nazis Zanis, in a book published in 1938. Possibly he realised he was totally wrong about the eugenics thing of the earlier book.
 

BrawlMan

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Yeah, his Black Martians are less "black" as in black people and more "Well, I've done red and green and blue and white, what's some more colours?".
It still counts and brings up unfortunate implications. Plus, we already discussed this part back on V1.

I'd also mention his Venus Amtor series, in which his hero visits a city run by people keen on eugenics, and the hero says it's a shame someone on Earth didn't kill all the lesser humans there ages ago. Sure, painful short term, but longer term you get a master race. Though he leaves the city fleeing for his life, but he does that everywhere he goes. Um...

A later book starts off with straw feminists, but quickly forgets that and jumps into fighting Nazis Zanis, in a book published in 1938. Possibly he realized he was totally wrong about the eugenics thing of the earlier book.
I never read his Venus series, so I can't say much. Good to know he learned something. I do find it odd he used straw feminists when he had plenty of good or decent written women in his Carter books. More so the later ones.
 
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Thaluikhain

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I never read his Venus series, so I can't say much. Good to know he learned something. I do find it odd he used straw feminists when he plenty of good or decent written women in his Carter books, More so the later ones.
In both the Amtor and Pellucidar series, the hero gets captured by a tribe where the women are dominant and the men and small and wimpy and enslaved, and this is supposed to be funny (I think). In one (can't remember which) the hero decides it's a good thing that normally men dominate women. Yeah...I like to think this is because he wrote dozens of books (not read them all by any means) quite quickly and he didn't seem to be trying too hard with some of his later stuff.
 

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In both the Amtor and Pellucidar series, the hero gets captured by a tribe where the women are dominant and the men and small and wimpy and enslaved, and this is supposed to be funny (I think). In one (can't remember which) the hero decides it's a good thing that normally men dominate women. Yeah...I like to think this is because he wrote dozens of books (not read them all by any means) quite quickly and he didn't seem to be trying too hard with some of his later stuff.
I don’t suppose William Moulton Marston had a hand in that one did he? :p
 

Thaluikhain

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I don’t suppose William Moulton Marston had a hand in that one did he? :p
He would actually have been active at about the right time, so can't actually say for sure he wasn't. Burroughs had a big thing for women being kidnapped, and men getting captured as well.

Of course, his biggest fetish was nudity. Everyone is almost totally naked all the time. The first thing that happens to a hero from Western civilisation is he loses his clothes and decides he's ok with that. OTOH, you can have as many naked women as you want without being weird if all the men are naked as well.