Red Sonja poster

Well, apparently at San Diego Comic Con things are always happening. Today brings the first big day a few tidbits fell the way of the web for us mere mortals not lucky enough to be there. Like this sweet new poster for Red Sonja as seen over at MTV.

Or this cool Red Sonja t-shirt art seen from Comingsoon.

As I mentioned before, the film is set to star everyone's favorite machine gun legged hottie Rose McGowan, and will be produced under the watchful eye of Robert Rodriguez, and directed by Douglas Aarniokoski. Since no footage has been shot yet, all they had to reveal was this preliminary artwork. but McGowan and Rodriguez were on hand for question about the planned film.

While not too much new information came out of today's panel at SDCC, the one shiny piece of info that dropped is that Rodriguez is in early talks to produce the upcoming Conan movie as well. And that alongside Sonja and the planned Thulsa Doom, should really round out the universe extremely well.

Thulsa Doom is another Robert E Howard character, only not a barbarian warrior. Instead he is a dangerous necromancer, who we've actually seen on screen before as portrayed in his older years by James Earl Jones in Conan the Barbarian. But a new take on this character as well was recently announced as in the works, with Djimon Hounsous attached to produce and star.

So we've got three Robert E Howard characters from the same universe all converging to the big screen at around the same time? Must be kismet.
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Zombie on Conan... maybe

Well, at first it seemed a bit odd, but people seemed more or less accepting. Then it sounded like maybe the man had just made up a little internet rumor in order to get his name out there, but now it looks like word has indeed come down that Rob Zombie is legitimately in the running for the directors chair on the new Conan film.

We all know he's fond of remakes after seeing what he did with Halloween, and regardless of his stock and trade for the horror genre, I actually think he might be a really great choice for the Conan film. If there's one thing the new and revamped Conan film needs its a bit of gore to keep it fresh; something the Schwarzenegger flicks never really managed.

Although, whether it was him starting the rumor or not, he has not been offered the job quite yet. According to IGN, Zombie joins fellow directors Xavier Gens of Hitman fame, Neil Marshall of The Descent, and possibly more on the shortlist of possibilities. We'll just have to wait and see what becomes of this as we move forward but for my money, thinking about all of these directors, I actually think Zombie might be the best for the role. It would definitely be a ballsy move, but I say Conan needs something visceral to get it going strong with a new generation of fans.
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Conan the moviestar...

Here's some news from late last week.

Lionsgate has agreed to fund a reported $100 million Conan movie! While there was some indication that this was in the works, the announcement has been made official now, as Variety reports that writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer of Sahara infamy have been hired on to pen the film. While the timeframe will depend on what happens with the writers strike, the thought is for this to kick off a series of Conan the Barbarian films that will hopefully begin shooting by the end of the year.

Hopefully they pull this off. Conan is a great character that definitely deserves another look. We'll see what becomes of this all in the weeks and months ahead...
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Conan teaser poster

Well, well, well... what have we here. From the fine folks at Comingsoon.net we catch our first glance at a teaser poster for the new live action Conan movie. Millennium films, who acquired the rights to the property over the summer, plan for this new adaptation to be closer to the Robert E Howard books than the previous films. While I believe the film should still be solidly in the scripting stage, I'm definitely interested to see what they do with it.

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Conan: Red Nails

I think somehow I missed actually mentioning this story before; but that shall be rectified right now. While we all know that Warner's is working hard to try to get a new live action Conan film (without the govenator) off the ground, there has been been some interesting developments on another front of the Cimmerian barbarian, those being work on the upcoming Conan: Red Nails animated feature.

Red Nails is another hearty adventure following Conan as he stumbles across a long lost city in the desert. Once there he finds political plotting, vengeful feuding courtiers, evil sorcery, beautiful scantily clad, yet demur warrior women, and a load of complex and interesting characters or creatures to bed, or kill. Basically its everything you love about any Conan story, and is considered by many to be one of Howard's best. Now this tale is coming to dvd sometime... soon.

Hard to say exactly whats happening with the film as its been in development for a very long time, and was even rumored to be scrapped after some legal disputes with Dark Horse and the Howard estate, but recently the official website for the film has gone online, and the excellent Ron Perlman (who we all know and love as Hellboy) has been announced as the man voicing the barbarian. So i think its safe to say that this film will at some point, probably very soon, see the light of day.

I know I'm a fan of the material, and Conan in general, but since you might not be as familiar with it, why not go over and browse around the official website, and check out these great pieces of art for the film. I think this will be a really fun, and cool film. Still a few things to see, like what the rating is and how far they can really push it, but I am very interested and I hope you are too. Maybe we'll get a trailer soon. I for one hope so... Until then check out these pics.