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Perhaps Crom Favors Us This Day?! A Ratner Directed CONAN May Not Be Certain!!
Merrick here...
Over last weekend, we heard that Brett Ratner's deal to direct the new CONAN movie was being finalized (details HERE).
Turns out, this may not actually be the case.
Seems Producer Avi Lerner (who evidently believes Ratner is the "perfect director" for this project) was premature with his press release detailing Ratner's involvement.
Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the del wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.
But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."
...says THIS L.A. TIMES WRITE-UP, which goes on to speculate why the...ummm...slightly misleading press release was dispatched to begin with. Interesting stuff...check it out.
But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."
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+ Expand All
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BTW FIRST!!! (always wanted to say that)
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maybe there is a Crom
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Oh well, another day, another failed attempt at making my life mean anything, still great news that Rats isn't directing it......yet
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amidoinitrite?
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Please don't ruin Conan.
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Ratner's insistence on shooting the entire thing in Malibu might just save us.
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I care less about who directs, just make sure it is well written and acted.....
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Reminds me of Marvin the Martian. "You have made me very angry..."
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He's da man.
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doesn't matter how well it's written and acted, a bad director can still make a shit movie
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Nov 13, 2008 1:10:20 PM CST
BRING BACK THE SLOWLY MORPHING SNAKE HEAD OF JAMES EARL JONES!
by lanedobler
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...I'm pretty happy for the time being. If Conan takes forever and finds a director and producer who really hunger for the character to come to life, that'd be the best case scenario. Whatever the reality may be in the offices of Lerner and Ratner, this kind of media dogfight doesn't exactly speak to selfless motivation, when it comes to the content.
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The Hugh Hefner biopic, God Of War, Guitar Hero, Beverly Hills Cop 4, etc etc etc
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...hahaha. One of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Especially in context that he's putting it before Conan. BHC4 before Conan. Even if the Rat were going to do it you'd want him to be so into it that he could put BHC4 to the side. Haha. What a loser.
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if you fail me, I say to Hell with you (I can't put Arnold's umlauts into the talkback.) This fuckin' skel has no idea what to do with the storyline, the surrounding mythology or even the concept of women's lamentations. Ultimately, Milius should be at least some sort of consultant with a veto power, but that's in the perfect world. You know, a world where Basil Poledouris is still alive and Brett Ratner is still feltching Jon Peters.
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a bad director can turn a brilliant script into crap.
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cue DocP jumping up and down hoping beyond hope that this holds true...
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Allow mw to quote the Rat, "Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."
Basically, Brett is telling Avi to shut the fuck up about his development deals. Personally, I think the Rat is the worse possible choice to direct Conan; the perfect director would be Peter Jackson. After he ass-raped X-Men 3, I vowed to never again subject myself to a movie that the Rat directed. He may argue that his movies make money. I would argue that porn movies make money too. Your movies, Brett, suck. You are a hack director, and you need to direct hack movies like Beverly Cop 4, which I won't pay money to see. Fuck you Ratner! -
...if Peter Jackson says no. I wouldn't mind him directing it, because he wouldn't do a shit job like Ratner would. Once again, fuck you Ratner!
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Oh my God, I just thought of an idea so simple. Get Ralph Bashki or some other animator and make it a hard R action cartoon. How long have we wanted to see a major studio hard R animated feature. Conan would be perfect.
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... a red hot poker in the ass. We need a Ratner directed Conan even less.
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A movie about Tamerlane. Temujin. Timur the Lame. I was reading a lot about him on wikipedia and other place, and boy, what an asshole that conqueror was. At least Alexander the Great didn't slaughter the people hw captured, mostly. Timur built a pyramid out of 70,000 human skills in India. He ravaged Delhi to the ground and it didn't recover for a century. He was a Muslim warlord from present day Uzbekistan who conquered more than anyone except genghis Khan. Maybe there has been a movie about him already, but I don't know of one. But I am dating this chick from Mongolia (one of the cool things about San Francisco...there are actually people from Mongolia here...coolest language ever, btw) and she says that, no, Temujin was all misunderstood, he was really a good guy who helped the peasants. But history says otherwise...it would be cool to see a movie about this asshole. Read up on Tamerlane the Great and the Timurid period of Samarkand. Cool stuff.
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It's funny to listen to folks blast Ratner, but he's truely never stretched his "epic" muscles. Beverly Hills Cop seems a safe choice for him, as a logical extension of what he's been doing with the Rush Hour films. Conan needs a director who can take the material and create something large and mythic. I would root for Ratner to succeed, but I've never seen anything he's done that led me to believe he's right for a huge fantasy film. At best, he's a capable director-for-hire when a studio's in a pinch, but he's not a visionary.
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Ratner is the poo.
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Avi, do yourself a big favor and dump BRETT RATNER after you read this. He is already wising off to you and showing disrespect. The big question is, why not get JOHN MILIUS to direct. The man doesn't get much work in Hollywood and would be glad to direct your CONAN pictures. You say in the LA TIMES article you want ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER to cameo as old king Conan right. Arnie never said no, he just laughted it off. Bring MILIUS on board and Arnie would do it in a second. I hope when Arnie said "please wait for 2 years because I will be back"...I hope Mr. Lerner that you have it planned for Schwarzenegger to star in his own old CONAN film. Forget that KING CONAN script the WB owns. Have your writers or Milius write up a better new draft that Nu Image films can own. In closing...GET SCHWARZENEGGER as a cameo (for now) and JOHN MILIUS!
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MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I read earlier today that the Rat directed the guitar hero Risky Business commercials. Talk about assraping my youth! (Except Heidi Klum's Commercial, that one was nice :))
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without Mako as the narrator/wizard, who is good enough to play his role?
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i thought Temujin was genghis khan?
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Nov 13, 2008 1:49:12 PM CST
Brett Ratner is a pretty cool guy...
by the guy who slept through everything.
eh. makes horrible movies and doesn't afraid of anything.
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haha....what a nerd
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It's nice to hear that Ratner is not yet a lock, but the notion that Lerner thinks he's "perfect" doesn't seem to suggest that a more distinguished replacement for Ratner would be in the offing, either. Then again, this is all blue-sky; perhaps Ratner really does have a passion for Conan that will shock the hell out of people.
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OH LORD OF THE MOUNTAIN SMASH THE RATNERS DEAL AND ALL THAT CONSIDER HIM INTO BLOODY RAGS WITH YOUR BOULDER SIZED BALLS!!! HAIL CROM>
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if ratt signs the conan deal, lets take up a collection to hire Jeff Gillooly for a visit.
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CONAN THE KING starring ahnold svartzineggah as da wruler himsehlf!
seriously just bring arnie back for one last hurrah. -
I mean what else does he have better to do?
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Is the story going to be set in Khitai? Wasn't the book Conan the Avenger mostly based in Khitai?
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I want Arnold starring in the Milius directed Crown of Iron movie, dammit... And Shia LeBeuf as Conn.......not... I know its lame, sorry...
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But who would be the best director willing to touch a barbarian movie. Not a successful genre on average.
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tamerlane (temijin)was from Samarkand in present day uzbekistan. He c laimed to be a related to Khan as one of many many of his grandsons, but he was from a different part of the world. He used Khans reign to help legitimize his own but he was an asshole in his own right.
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with crappy music and bad actors. No wonder the genre on average is not quire successful. Anyone remember Kull the Conqueror. Ye gods, no more of those, please.
Get a good script (Crown of Iron), a good cast, and a good director (with an interest to elevate the material) and this could be a hot property again.
Also, superhero movies were also considered risky until a few came out from directors that cared about the content AND the execution. Past performance should be no indicator of possible future success.
Make it good, and watch the asses find the seats. -
Babarian movies are about ancient Elephant warriors. Much different.
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Nov 13, 2008 2:40:33 PM CST
"Conan, what is best in life?" "Brett Ratner not directing my m
by spyguy
Or..."To crush Brett Ratner, see Ratner driven before you and to hear the lamentations of Ratner!"
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Gans ain't a bad choice at all. The action scenes in the Wolf movie were pretty damn good. As long as Conan's not doing wire-assisted Kung Fu, that would be great.
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And why should they? If Brett had done it, Chris Tucker would've been brought back as Thulsa Doom. I'm not trying to be a total dick; but he did destroy most of X-Men 3.
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than a Ratner Conan movie. Nuff said.
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The very notion that Ratner was even in the running for this gig has convinced me that this project is going to end up being a viewing experience akin to having a rolled up pangolin rammed up my ass.
I'm much more keen to see the animated Conan: Red Nails next year:
www.conanrednails.com -
...even the friggin' voice acting talent of Red Nails (Ron Perlman, Clancy Brown, Mark Hamill) has eclipsed Millennium's upcoming shitfest.
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Arad, Lerner...just sayin'.
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...unless Lerner sells it...trust me..the Rat will end up doing it. Fuck my gopher but he actually called Rat an "A-list" director. Sigh. Read the article...it paints Ratner as a douchebag unhinged from his own suck reality (especially when he props BHC4 as if it's a big deal or people actually want to see it). But it also paints Lerner as somewhat stalker-ish over Ratner. Believe me...unless we get a miracle...we'll have Rat's banal, greasy fingers fucking up Conan to such an extent that even our grandkids won't want shit to do with Conan. His movie will speak to the general audience through Conan and not the Rat and thus, the character is doomed to limbo for another ten years. I won't even discuss the idiot notion of money = quality. Money might equal success but quality and success are not mutually exclusive nor firmly intrinsic to one another. To bad "m oney men" like Lerner never realize that.I'd rather have Mos Def and Jack Black's version of Conan ala 'Be kind, rewind' then Rat's idiot version!And for the defenders, Rat-hater-haterz, I would LOVE to be wrong but if I'm not, it's too fucking late and those of us who love this character and the universe Howard created, we'll likely never see Conan on screen again. Unless it's as a fucking moronic, boring-vanilla mess, screaming it's potential between every frame if handled by a more skilled director.Oh, wait..the Rat wrote a Conan story when he was ten! Fuck my badger...give him the job! I wrote one when I was 11 but I wasn't the supra-genius behind Rush Hour 1, 2, and 3 (cause 2 piles of doofus bullshit are never enough!) so fuck me in the ear with a mutant monkey dick!!
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His original, non-Milius, Conan script was about as great as it can get!
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Nov 13, 2008 3:38:22 PM CST
Brett, when you're filming any helicoptet stunt scene in BHC4...
by jackpumpkinhead
...make sure you don't spend all the week budget on the funny powder and request that they buy you a crane-operated director's chair instead. Then, when the chopper flies over the set, make sure to extend the chair to have better view, and look at the blades! Keep your head very close to the blades when they're moving, the view is the best from that position.
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We need Milius! We need Milius! We know these fuckers read talkbacks (can't imagine what J.J. thinks of the Enterprise design talk back, waaaah, my ship sucks, waaah.) So there for, let's begin a popular uprising against Lerner. If Lerner is properly motivated, Milius will showup and take an M-1 to the Rat, making him flee into the hills. His pyramid will burn and Milius will write a good script and wear his trucker hat upon a troubled brow. Anyone agree?
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"it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero." - Erm, why was it exciting news?!
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Nov 13, 2008 3:47:13 PM CST
"...believes Ratner is the "perfect director" for this project"
by doctorwho?
How the hell did this guy come to THAT conclusion.
Well, if Ratner was his first choice I certainly have no faith in his second choice. This guy has NO vision whatsoever. -
ratner does not even know that the word 'atmosphere' exists. Howard's worlds from Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane and other unrelated short stories he wrote had this grim, sombre atmosphere that you really feel the cold breeze when he's in some dungeon or palace or the sticky thickness when he's in some tropical green hell, and i hope whoever does this movie does not skimp on the outrageously violent scenes in it. in Black Colossus during the battle in the desert wastes there was a sea of blood lapping at people's ankles after the battle ended, how fucking insane does that sound?
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...anyone?
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I have no repsect for you Merrick, because you are a bitch. You are the biggest bitch on this site and most any other site.
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And very well equiped. It would serve the film well, whoever the director may be. I guess Avi was a bit too quick on the subject. Despite all I've said on the subject, I think Ratner is a better fit for Beverly Hills Cop 4.
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That youtube of the lemur or whatever the fuck it is had me fuckin laughing out loud man. Totally made my day...
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get them together, wait til arnold is out of office and have sly shoot it john rambo style. i said this a while ago.
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about Robocop being frozen and then defrosted 100 years into the future and kicking all kinds of ass.
Can I have a $100 million dollar budget to make it now please, I'm obviously qualified because all my movies suck as much as Ratner's -
Is a cunt
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For once will a movie studio listen to what the fans have to say and get a director we actually want for this project?
Surely Verhoeven's fee for directing a picture must be around the same or less than Ratner's? It's a genre he has worked in before and he knows how to shoot action, sex and all out carnage.
Of course, it might be possible that they have already asked him and he turned it down but somehow I doubt it.
I think people are still a bit scared of Verhoeven as a profitable director after the box office failure of Showgirls, Hollowman and to some extent Starship Troopers but the guy has not lost it, Black Book was amazing and Troopers has got a lot of love over the last few years, enough in fact to warrant to follow ups (however shitty they may be).
There is an 80's ressurgance going on at the moment, the old action stars are coming back, why not the directors too? -
Direct Beverly Hills Cop 4 i really don't give a fuck. I'm not interested in seeing a fourth movie anyway. But stay as far away from a Conan movie as possible!
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You totally should refuse to do Conan now!
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How about NO to both?
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It's a great anime, and the american audiences will not tell the difference. Have a lot of Bourne-esque action sequences, make it dark and realistic, do some viral marketing and make sure one of the actors die before it's released. There you go.
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Tamerlane is Timur, Timur the Lame to be exact. Temujin is Genghis Khan's given name. Temujin and Genghis Khan are about as "different" as Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali. And xevoid, the reason that you're puzzled by the fact that your girlfriend thinks that Temujin was a good guy is because she's talking about Temujin, Genghis Khan, and you're talking about Timur.
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I ask that you grant me what I seek against Brett RATner...to redeem what he has destroyed with X-men: The Last Stand and dreams of kiddie Beverly Hills Cop. Grant me revenge!!! And if you do not listen....then to HELL with you!"
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Ratner would be right for this? He's a fucking hack. Do not want.
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would be a terrible choice.
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Also a bad choice.
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Directed by DAVID CRONENBERG. Go on, you know it's win. -
Millenium Films/Nu Image strikes again. Literally, they're best film has been "Rambo." EVERYTHING else has been shit. Not just shit, but shit with name actors and directors obviously phoning it in. Hopefully they'll be bankrupt in a year with Lerner in jail for tax evasion or fraud. You realize how dick a move has to be in order for me to SYMPATHIZE with Brett Ratner?
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http://www.moviehole.net/200816554-schwarzenegger-offered-conan-role
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You guys hate Ratner way too much. How many threads of "Ratner sux, LOL" do we have to have fer fuck's sake. Who would BE the best, then? I'd love to see a Verheoven barbarian, but the general public wouldn't. Werner Herzog, filmed in the Gobi and Himalayas. Actually, Ridley Scott. Yeah, Ridley Scott.
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Conan needs an insane German at the helm!
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The more I think about it the more I think they're just NOT going to nail it and don't GET what Conan is all about. They need to look to the source material...the BOOKS...NOT the original film!
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Apocalypto was pure R.E. Howard.
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still, doc- this should be good news for you: Ratner not asspounding the sweaty corpse of conan.
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It would be, except I fear it's a classic out of the frying pan into the fire kind of thing. There's no way those Millennium homunculi would ever consider going with someone as cool as Twohy.
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He tried to hire me for one of his features in Bulgaria, on the most offensively low rates I'd ever heard of. As my av may hint, I'm a huge fan of Conan, and so I hope this dies a death under Avi Lerner, and reverts to better people.
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”Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought and why we died. All that matters is that today, many stood against two. Valor pleases you, so grant us this one request. Grant us revenge! And if you do not listen and allow these two fuck-wits control over a Conan film instead of Milius, the HELL with you!”
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Ratner is full stop the WORST choice for this. So I don't think you will get an out of the frying pan into the flaming inferno of hell. Ratner is a poor mimic- and what you'd have got with a Ratner Conan would have been a soulless PG-13 dilution of Milius' original. dodged a bullet there.
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From your lips to Crom's ear.
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Now if we can just get Crom to smite PWSA for ruining Alien then all will be right in the world
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If Arnold asked Avi to wait 2 yrs, is Arnold contemplating a ROCKY BALBOA-style comeback as Conan? You know, 60-something guy, some human growth hormone, a lot of working out... There's been talk from the producers that this Conan will be more faithful to the Howard stories, which would mean a complete break with the 80s films, yet they want to associate Arnold somehow which in the audience's mind will connect this new movie with the other ones. I for one am a bit perplexed. Is this Conan a reboot? Remake? Continuation? As for Milius, I like his style but he better damn well respect the source material more than he did last time if he directs Conan again. Verhoeven can stage great action and I've enjoyed his work a lot, but his genre movies -- Flesh and Blood, Robocop, Starship Troopers -- have a self-mocking, self-conscious ironic tone to them. I think a barbarian film from Verhoeven would be full of carnage and sex but also an undercurrent that would pass judgement on everything depcited onscreen with a modern's sensibilities. Just like STARSHIP TROOPERS was ultimately a critique of the possibility of a fascist-style future regime and all its trappings (right down to the WWII style news/propaganda shorts that pop up through the film); or FLESH AND BLOOD looking at the superstition, violence, and ignorance of 1500 Europe. I've come to the conclusion the most suitable director to give Conan the proper treatment is Mel Gibson. No ironic, self-aware winking to the audience in BRAVEHEART,. Now, Gibson probably wouldn't touch a "barbarian" pic given what images that word conjures up, but if someone savvy were able to get him to read the original Howard stories (the best of them anyway), and explain that the next film is going to be deadly serious and not a camp fest with some muscleman in a fur speedo, maybe we'll be on to something. But Mel Gibson isn't going to work for Avi Lerner (for obvious reasons). Mel's company has to take the whole thing over completely. Which means the boys that own the rights to Conan will have to wait until Avi's option for Conan expires. Then, they would be wise to gun for Gibson.
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Avi will get SCHWARZENEGGER! But hope he also goes for JOHN MILIUS. If not, PAUL VERHOEVEN.
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is it good?
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That is all.
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it already is
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