Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Oh, boy. AB King is staining furniture from excitement somewhere right now. He's freaking out. AB King, as regular AICN readers know, is the single biggest Arnold fan in the world. He has boundless love for the Austrian Oak. He writes to Harry and myself about every single move the man makes. He is an unabashed fan in the purest of ways. Hope springs eternal in AB's heart that Arnold will end up back on top, the King of Hollywood once more.
Well, AB, you may have just gotten your wish.
Over at Variety, they broke the story this morning that Arnold Schwarzeneggar has signed several deals with Warner Bros., creating a relationship between them that will encompass several films in a row. In addition to T3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, which is gearing up for principal photography right now with Jonathan Mostow directing, Arnold is now officially signed for the long-rumored KING CONAN: CROWN OF IRON, the John Milius sequel to the 1982 original CONAN, one of my favorite films. He's also going to star in and produce a remake of Michael Crichton's WESTWORLD, playing the Yul Brynner role of a gunslinging robot gone mad.
There's a lot to process here. I'm actually going to talk about the WESTWORLD thing over on my REMAKE THIS! column today. I'd like to focus right now on the positive: KING CONAN. This excites me to no end. Arnold has just done the smartest thing he's done for his career in years. I haven't had a chance to read Milius' rewrite of the film... heck, I'm not even sure he's finished with the rewrite yet... but I adore the first draft. I reviewed it here a while back, and since then I've been waiting for firm news about progress on the film. I know that it's been a hard road for Milius, who is trying to make something epic and beautiful and fitting as a follow-up to his classic first film. His script wasn't protected by the Wachowskis, who are too busy trying to finish their MATRIX sequels to really give KING CONAN the hands-on attention as producers that might smooth the process for Milius. They got involved in this as fans, supposedly, and it would be nice to see them behave like fans. They're in a unique position here to use their commercial credibility at the studio to protect something that might otherwise not make it through.
And if all of this works out according to Lorenzo Di Bonaventura's wildest dreams... and I sincerely hope it does... then I'd like to issue a personal challenge to Lorenzo right now:
I dare you to make DOC SAVAGE.
I just read this script for the first time about a week ago, and I've been savoring it ever since, re-reading certain key sequences. This is an unabashed adventure movie that can play to a family audience that will never be appropriate for WESTWORLD or T3 or KING CONAN.
It's Arnold's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK if you let him do it. And don't worry about it being "too retro," Lorenzo. The hyper-stylized New York that exists in this script is more akin to Coruscant in ATTACK OF THE CLONES than it is to something "retro." Besides, "retro" hasn't hurt the fortunes of Stephen Sommers or Universal with their MUMMY series so far, and Fox is betting big on Stephen Norrington's LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN.
I'm going to write a full review of DOC SAVAGE in the weeks ahead, but for now I'll say that the groundwork is being laid for Arnold to genuinely have a winning streak he hasn't been able to achieve the likes of since the early '90s, and Lorenzo already owns the property to extend this potential run of good luck. Don't do it for me, though, Lorenzo, or because the script is great, or because it's a genre that is rarely done right and you have the chance to do something great here. Don't do it because it'll make you a mountain of filthy lucre. Do it because Arnold has a chance here to regain his status as an icon, an action hero beyond compare. Do it because he deserves it and his fans do, too.
Do it for AB King.
"Moriarty" out.
