Do you want to live forever? Personally, we're not so sure. On the one hand, we would get to see a heck of a lot of movies, but on the other, well, *gestures at the current state of the world*. If you ask the man, myth, and indeed legend that is Arnold Schwarzenegger however, we reckon he might just say yes — or at least, that's what his latest exciting movie announcement suggests. Per THR's reporting (and a loose-lipped Arnie himself at his own Arnold Sports Festival over the weekend), Schwarzenegger is teaming up with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie for King Conan, an unexpected sequel to 1982 swords-and-sorcery classic Conan The Barbarian and its 1984 sequel Conan The Destroyer.
Based on Robert E. Howard's pulp fantasy comic book creation, a sort-of proto Geralt of Rivia who battles monsters and monstrous men (and women) in the fictitious Hyborian Age, the original Conan movies — which helped solidify Arnie's transition from bodybuilder-actor to actor-bodybuilder — saw Schwarzenegger's Conan tangling with the likes of James Earl Jones and Andre The Giant. A third movie in the cult franchise, Conan The Conqueror, was in the works for a while but never came to fruition — which is where King Conan comes in. Per Schwarzenegger's own colourful synopsis, King Conan is "a great story where Conan was 40 years [as] king and he gets complacent, and now he gets forced out of the kingdom, slowly. Then there’s conflict, of course, and then he somehow comes back, and then there’s all kinds of madness and violence and magic and creatures. Now, of course, you have all the special effects, and the studio system has plenty of money to make those movies really big. So I’m looking forward to all of those projects.” Conflict, madness, violence, magic, and creatures? Say no more, Arnie — we're sold!
Amazingly, not only did Arnie casually let slip that he and McQ — who hit the ejector seat button on his tenure behind the Mission: Impossible camera with last year's The Final Reckoning — are doing King Conan, but he also teased a further two unexpected in-the-works legacyquels. According to the Austrian Oak, Prey and Predator Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg has been on the phone about a potential return to the franchise for its OG hero, and a Colonel John Matrix comeback could actually finally be on the cards as Arnie has now read a Commando sequel script. All of which is to say that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be back, and back, and back again. No complaints here!