"KING CONAN" IN "NEW YORK TIMES"!
Can 10,000 Schwarzenegger fans be wrong?
Reported By: TheARNOLDFANS.com Staff
Saturday, April 12, 2003

It has been no secret that one or two bigwigs at the Paradox Entertainment Group and Warner Bros. are hesitant to consider Arnold, now 55, to be cast once more as Conan in the next (and best) King Conan epic. Now, with today's release of The New York Times reaching millions of readers, NO ONE can ignore the power of the fans. Our voices are loud and our demand is simple; make King Conan with Arnold and Milius NOW or "if you do not, to hell with you"!

Below is a good chunk of Dave Kehr's New York Times Conan article!

THE NEW YORK TIMES
April 11, 2003

...as of Tuesday, 10,606 of them (Arnold and Conan fans) had signed a petition posted on the Web site thearnoldfans.com, Urging Warner Brothers to move ahead with John Milius's "King Conan," the long planned and long deferred sequel to Mr. Schwarzenegger's "Conan the Barbarian," which Mr. Milius ("The Wind and the Lion," "Big Wednesday") wrote and directed in 1982. (Conan fans do not consider Richard Fleischer's 1984 "Conan the Destroyer," which also starred Mr. Schwarzenegger, worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with Mr. Milius's epic work.)

"I've got to have Milius back," said Randy Jennings, who has operated TheArnoldFans.com with René de Jong since 1998. " "Conan" was my favorite movie of Arnold's when I was growing up and it still is my favorite."

The hesitation, both on the part of Warner Brothers, which owns the sequel rights, and Paradox Entertainment, a Swedish company that owns the rights to the barbarian character created by Robert E. Howard, appears to stem from a basic business quandary: would it be more profitable to continue the series with the middle-aged Mr. Schwarzenegger (he is now 55) or find a younger face and bulging physique to replace him?

Mr. Milius's script is an action- packed but movingly elegiac study of the aging Conan, who is forced against his anarchist nature to become the ruler of a remote corner of an emerging empire. While battle scenes abound, written in Mr. Milius's chiseled, Hemingwayesque style, the tone is finally somber and reflective, as in one of John Ford's late westerns. The script also gives Conan a son, who is taken away from him and raised by an evil emperor, a role that would seem perfect for a younger star who could draw in the kids.

"It didn't take long at all for the 10,000 signatures to appear," Mr. Jennings said. "We just put it up four months ago. Which is amazing, since it usually takes something political to reach these kinds of numbers."

In the comics titled "King Conan", the barbarian is meant to be in his mid to late fifties. Arnold is fifty-five so he is the perfect age! He is the perfect star.

The new John Milius "King Conan: Crown of Iron" revised script has nearly equal shared time between Conan, Arnold, and his son Kon, a handsome actor in his mid-twenties. Kon can bring in your young crowds, Arnold can bring in the young and the middle-aged crowds... and together, they can bring in mega millions! So what are you waiting for Paradox and WB? You will win with profits and the fans will win with a proper Conan movie ONLY Milius and Arnold can deliver!

Thanks to Yannick Bouchard for sending in the "King Conan" artwork!

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TheARNOLDFANS.com Staff