Morgan told the actor to think of the film as ‘catching up’ with an old friend. “Not a reboot, not a remake. Just an update. Where has the character been all this time? A catch-up with Conan.”
The story that Morgan has plotted will pick up late in Conan’s life while still ruling over his kingdom.
He says: “He’s not going out and fighting battles, but he ends up getting drawn into something and he has to access the barbarian he was in his youth. I love that Conan has been many things in his life, notably a pirate, a major tactician and a commander of men. In this movie, we’re going to tap into some of those things – things you haven’t seen on screen yet.
“I want the warrior whose joints have started to fuse together, who has to crack the cartilage so he can pick up a sword again. I want the guy who’s not necessarily lost a step, but there’s some rust he has to shake off. I want to embrace that. It makes it a greater hero story.
“Conan needs to be faced with challenges. The greatest challenge to him isn’t the armies that are set before him. It’s, on some level, self-doubt, a little bit of slowing down and forcing yourself to be heroic beyond what people expect of you. What I don’t want is for him to step back in and look the same. That would defeat the purpose of our story.”
Morgan hasn’t officially signed on to write the film, but he will be involved with it in some capacity.
“No matter what, I’ll be there every step of the way. Whether it’s penning this quickly or selecting the writer, it’s me guiding the process or being a real honest-to-god producer. I’m excited either way. I’m really, really stoked.”
The film is said to be a direct sequel to 1984’s Conan the Barbarian and will ignore the events of both Conan the Destroyer and of the most recent reboot, 2011’s Conan the Barbarian, which features “Game of Thrones” star Jason Momoa in the lead. Universal is aiming for a 2014 release.
