Amazon's Conan TV-series - Not Picked Up

[Aryeh]

"Conan the Barbarian TV Series From Ryan Condal, Miguel Sapochnik & Warren Littlefield In Works At Amazon"
Here: deadline.com/2018/02/amazon-developing-conan-drama-based-robert-e-howard-books-colony-co-creator-1202278547/

[Deleted]

Excellent news.

Thanks Aryeh.

[almuric]

Please don't suck . . . please don't suck . . . please don't suck . . .

[mojo]

Writer on Colony and Hercules, director on GoT, producer on Fargo. Good start.

[mojo]

Amazon also has the new LoTR though. And these guys are working on a ton of things already, which is maybe a bad sign. On the other hand they plan on retelling "the classic character’s story via a return to his literary origins."

[deuce]

Y'all beat me to it.

At least this doesn't immediately set off alarm bells. We'll see.

[darthgall]

I'm an optimist at heart, but man I see some really good signs here:

"Driven out of his tribal homelands, Conan wanders the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage."

Ok, the "driven out" part is a bit off (but I can see why a tv series would got that way for drama) but "place that rejects him as a mindless savage"? That comes up thematically again and again and again, so that's a fit. I immediately thought of Conan knifing that dude in the dark at beginning of tower of the elephant...

"Condal admits to having a personal obsession with the material, which Sapochnik also has been a longtime fan of, leading to their collaboration on the project with the creative goal to return to the original Howard literary works and produce a series that is faithful to the spirit of his Conan character. Conan the Barbarian, aka Conan the Cimmerian, was created by Howard in 1932 in a series of fantasy stories published in Weird Tales magazine."

Back to REH's written stuff, check. That's good. 

"Condal is the co-creator, executive producer and showrunner of USA’s drama series Colony, currently in its third season. On the film side, he is currently adapting Logan’s Run for Warner Bros and previously wrote a movie about another muscled hero, Hercules, starring Dwayne Johnson."

I watched Hercules expecting a cheesey action adventure carried by Dwayne Johnson's charm. And it started that way... but the way it de-mythologized him and showed a man betrayed and driven... it turned into a better movie than I was expecting, which is a rare treat to me these days. 


"Sapochnik won an Emmy and DGA Award for outstanding directing for the Game of Thrones episode “Battle of the Bastards.”"

Oh man this is the one that really gives me hope. That whole run, with Jon Snow on foot amongst a force-on-force cavalry charge... that was a thrilling sequence, and I'd put it up against over half the movies i've seen in the last year any day...

Color me super intrigued. 

Mick. 

[wulfhere]

"Driven out of his tribal homelands, Conan wanders the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage."

The words "searches for purpose" set off alarm bells to me. I suspect this is going to be terrible.

[terryallenuk]

Well a TV series is what I think we all wanted so fingers-crossed . Put me in the optimistic pile ;-)

Terry

[robp]

Wow, good news, I think there's a better chance of a more faithful adaptation in this format than for a movie. The fact the guys have actually read REH is encouraging!

[zarono]

Looking forward to this! Here's a link to Condal's twitter, he seems enthusiastic!
@wrathofcondal

[BlackHeart]

I have some doubts about final product, but, this was a heluva way to wake me up this morning 😁 There are gonna be some personal seal of writer on a character, yet, what luck we had with the movies till now, I take this as Mitra's blessing.
So... What do you guys think... Who's gonna weild broadsword as new Conan?

[Char-Vell]

Feb 6, 2018 7:37:25 GMT -5 BlackHeart said:

I have some doubts about final product, but, this was a heluva way to wake me up this morning 😁 There are gonna be some personal seal of writer on a character, yet, what luck we had with the movies till now, I take this as Mitra's blessing.
So... What do you guys think... Who's gonna weild broadsword as new Conan?

Asa Butterfield!

but seriously, I hope this is good.

I'll wait for some reports from you guys before I do something drastic like subscribe to the Amazon service.

[deepermagic]

I'm pretty excited about this. I'm glad the producer is 'obsessed' with REH's stories. No guarantee, but that still gives me hope.

I also think that having this done by a non-traditional outlet like Amazon is a big deal. I'm finding the quality of writing/creativity/etc to be much higher on Amazon or Netflix than traditional channels. The streaming services seem to give their show creators much more freedom to make what they want to make rather than what some TV executive thinks they should make. I recall an interview with the creators of Stranger Things and when asked why they only did 8 episodes, they responded that it was all they needed to tell the story. On traditional TV channels (assuming they got past the pilot) they would have been forced to spread it over 24 shows and commercial breaks.

[johnnypt]

The description sounds like the writer trying to encapsulate it instead of the official synopsis. Some quality people involved and they've specifically said they want to bring it back to Howard. They're at least starting out in the right place instead of having to be dragged there kicking and screaming.

And yes, being done on a streaming platform allows them a LOT of freedom to tell the story they want to tell how they want to tell it for how long they need to tell it. If we need 10 episodes this season, OK. Only 8 next time, fine.