Conan the Barbarian: Robert Rodriguez reveals Netflix let their Conan rights lapse

Conan the Barbarian was created by author Robert E. Howard in the early 1930s – and around the time of the character’s 50th anniversary, he was brought to life on the screen in an incredibly popular movie (titled Conan the Barbarian) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger reprised the role in the less popular sequel, Conan the Destroyer, in 1984, and while there were plans for another sequel in the ’80s, but it never made it into production. And even though Schwarzenegger has been saying for years that he wants to play Conan again, somehow it has never happened. Instead, we got a Conan the Barbarian reboot in 2011 – a movie that star Jason Momoa has described as “a big pile of sh*t.” Five years ago, it was announced that the Netflix streaming service had secured a deal with Conan Properties International that gave them the right to dig through the entire catalog of Conan novels and stories to develop live-action and animated films and TV shows. Not surprisingly, given that there hasn’t been any updates on the project in the last five years, it has now been revealed that Netflix let their Conan rights lapse.

The news does come from a surprising source: filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, who talked about Conan during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Rodriguez said (with thanks to Collider for the transcription), “Netflix had it. I went and pitched it to them. And they then… they let the rights lapse. Sometimes it’s too much baggage for a character.” Asked what he thought about the previous Conan adaptations, he said, “No one has captured the spirit of Conan from the books yet.“

In addition to the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jason Momoa films, there have been a few Conan TV shows. The animated series Conan the Adventurer ran for 65 episodes in the early ’90s and was followed by Conan and the Young Warriors, which only lasted for 13 episodes. Ralf Möller played Conan in the live-action series also called Conan the Adventurer, which ran for 22 episodes from 1997 into ’98. Amazon was said to be working with Colony co-creator Ryan Condal, Game of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik, Fargo and The Handmaid’s Tale executive producer Warren Littlefield, Pathfinder Media, and Endeavor Content to develop a Conan TV series for Prime Video back in 2018 – but that didn’t go anywhere.

Would you like to see a new Conan the Barbarian movie or TV show make it into production? And would you like to see Robert Rodriguez at the helm if/ it happens? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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