 TAFs Exclusive:
Milius to Bring Conan to Broadway?
Milius and Arnold Present Conan the Opera!
Reported By: Randy Jennings
Thursday, August 19, 2010
While
speaking with the great John Milius, director of Conan the Barbarian,
for nearly an hour, I learned of many interesting developments for the
director/screenwriter including some goods on his new Genghis Khan
script, King Conan and other projects. However, one that came
as the biggest surprise was that we may someday get a Conan the
Barbarian broadway musical! Lookout Spiderman the musical, "Conan the
Opera" is coming!
After filling me in on the latest on "King Conan: Crown of Iron"
(another story), Milius dropped the bomb about another Conan project
that he'd like to see materialize.
John Millius: Basil (Poledouris) and I always wanted to do Conan as
either a ballet or an opera. Unfortunately Basil died but we always
wanted to do that. We thought that was a great idea. I still think it
would be a terrific idea. The story of Conan, of the first movie, is
such a great story for a ballet or an opera.
***add basil 
Ironically, a Conan fan recently created his own YouTube sensation
called " Conan the Barbarian: The Musical". Although it's not taken
seriously and is sung in a bad Austrian accent, it is continuously
gaining viewership with over 700,000 views. Click the image below to
view it.
TheArnoldFans: There's a
fan-made Conan musical clip going around on YouTube right now.
John Millius: Yeah, I heard
that it's very successful. Did you see it it? Leonard, my assistant, he
really liked it. He thought it was great.
TheArnoldFans: I was
laughing. it's well done. The words are good but I'm not a fan of the
singing...even though it's not meant to be taken serious, it's just not
Arnold-authentic enough for me. But you and Basil actually wanted to do
this project before he passed?
John Millius: Yeah, I mean
we had always talked about doing that.
TheArnoldFans: Would you
create a giant Wheel of Pain on the stage and a huge Tree of Woe?
John Millius: (laughs). That
would be great! But yeah, we'd have to use his music. When we made the
movie, It's strange because I'm known as a writer but when I directed,
I always said music and image are predominant. Words are not. And
that's why Conan has so few words in it because when I did it I said
'Basil, just think of this whole thing, this movie, like a ballet.'
It's all about movement, mood and faces and music. What I find that's
really laughable is when you see sword and sorcery (films) and they
have people talking a lot, it's stupid.
I then reached out to Sandahl Bergman, who played Valeria in Conan the
Barbarian, to hear what she thought of the musical idea. Bergman,
after-all came from the stage and performs to this day as a
professional dancer.
Sandahl: We'll that's my work, that's my initial world. I'm really familiar with that (stage and screen). I kind of went back to the theatre, which is my beginning for me. But I don't know. They do a lot of movies and now they're making them musicals. I did the movie Xanadu. They did Xanadu on broadway. Or sometimes it's vice-versa, like Chicago being done into a movie. I really don't know, it would take a real innovative person. It's odd for me, I don't quite see a John Milius musical but then again when I did Xanadu, I never saw the the famous producers Joel Silver and Larry Gordon, who are Die Hard action people doing Xanadu...which was a big flop but had a real big cult following. Basil was amazing Yes, that music was another character in that movie. That music was just so perfect.
The Basil Poledouris Conan the Barbarian score is certainly one of the
world's best cinematic symphonies and it's opening track, "Anvil of
Crom" is recognized by everyone as the quintessential battlefield
anthem as heard on many film and video game trailers. If Spiderman can
be made into a broadway musical, a film with mediocre melodies, imagine
the glory of Poledouris's epic as it may one day move you to blissful
tears. After all, Conan does not cry. So you shall cry for him.
Let Milius hear your voices and speak up now! Demand this opera...not
the cheesy YouTube version but rather another Milius masterpiece!
TheArnoldFans brought you a petition in 2002 to get fans to tell Arnold
we wanted "King Conan" to be T3's follow-up film. With the help of
AintItCoolnews.com and The New York Times, we generated 14,000
signatures and made Arnold commit to the film before the Wachowski
brothers made Arnold want to be Governor instead. How about a new
petition to get Conan on broadway? Click HERE to
support the project and sign the very easy petition now!
Click Here to Comment on this story.
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Randy Jennings
Copyright © The ARNOLD FANS. All rights
reserved.
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