10 Things You Didn't know About ConanTheBarbarian

[Music] in 1982 arnold schwarzenegger starred as conan the barbarian a powerful warrior who must break away from his chains of slavery and destroy the evil sorcerer falsehood doom played by james o jones an evil powerful cult leader who can summon demons conan must go on a quest to prove his worthiness as a brave and mighty warrior gladiator and save the world from the terrifying clutches of doom so he can fulfill the prophecy of his people the sumerians and become the world's most powerful warrior and avenge his parents in this classic sword and sorcery fantasy movie [Music] so today we are going to look at the movie that put arnold schwarzenegger into the mainstream spotlight by looking into 10 things that you didn't know about conan the barbarian let's check it out number 10 background of conan the world was introduced to the sword and sorcery hero conan in 1932 making him predate other heroes like superman and the phantom he was created by american author robert e howard who was a frequent writer for pulp magazines conan first appeared in pulp magazine weird tales in a story called the phoenix on the sword the story was originally written for a different character called cole of atlantis who was another character created by howard but the story never got published so it was reworked for his new creation conan the barbarian or as he was known back then conan the sumerian conan would go on to become a popular pulp character and would then move on to other mediums like books and in 1970 he would even enter the world of comics as marvel published a popular comic book series based on the character in fact the marvel comics were actually my introduction to conan yes even before i saw the films so they will always have a special place in my heart so with conan now becoming a popular character in pop culture it would seem that a movie would be a sure thing however ownership issues crept in number nine a conan the barbarian movie was planned in the early 70s in 1970 ideas started to float around hollywood for bringing conan onto the big screen producers edward r pressman and edward summer got to work on making a conan movie in 1975 but it was a struggle to get the rights to the character after the death of conan's creator richard e howard the conan character was in something of an ownership fiasco with the rights being passed on from holder to holder at that particular time a company called lancer books held the rights but that ownership itself was going for a legal fiasco so pressman and summer had to wait two years for that to sort itself out where they finally acquired the rights to the character but this was actually beneficial as during the two years it took for the producers to require the rights of conan star wars had come out and was a massive hit and suddenly there was an interest in adventurous fantasy movies with heroic characters and dirty harry and apocalypse now writer red dawn director john milius was in talks to direct the movie as he had previously expressed interest to director conan movie number eight potential conan candidates when it came to bringing conan onto the big screen the most important part of the movie was finding the right actor to bring the sword and sorcery hero to life on the big screen it had to work and be believable or otherwise the movie wouldn't have worked according to summer they were looking for actors known for playing tough guy roles and had their eyes out for charles bronson william smith and schwarzenegger's future rival sylvester stallone whom at the time had become a huge star thanks to rocky however producers saw arnold schwarzenegger in the documentary movie pumping iron and felt that he had the right look for the part thanks to his muscular physique and so arnie was approached and he accepted the role feeling that it would be a great way to get him into the mainstream entertainment where he had the opportunity to go from bodybuilder turned action hero however director john milius wasn't entirely convinced as he wanted a more athletic looking conan so annie went on an 18-month exercise routine to get the build that milius wanted as well as training for other skills required for the movie such as horse riding and fencing as well as martial arts and so an action movie icon was born in hindsight it's kind of ironic that there was a slight hesitation to arnie as he would go on to become the biggest action star of the 80s and 90s number seven conan was going to be set in the future with mutants in conan's early production days paramount pitchers got on board the project and they wanted a screenwriter with clout to pen the script so oliver stone aka the director of platoon and wall street came on board to write the script for conan the barbarian his script was vastly different to the final film in that it was set in a run down future where civilization was more or less destroyed and conan must take on a heap of mutants however the script caused issues for the movie's production as this version of the movie would have taken the movie's budget up to 40 million dollars and paramount pictures were no longer interested as well as other studios whom were approached even director john milius was no longer interested in the project at the time as he didn't like the script and was having creative differences with producer edward pressman [Applause] number six change in production producers pressman and summer were having financial difficulties in trying to keep the conan project afloat what was also an issue was finding a director at one stage it was suggested that oliver stone would co-direct conan the barbarian along with john alves who was the second unit director on jaws 2. oliver stone supposedly even asked ridley scott if he would direct but he turned it down john milius was approached again to direct and he said that he would if he could rework oliver stone's script which he did with the script still featuring stone's input but changed it more to be what we would get on screen with more of a past mythology setting but also at that time milius was contracted to direct a movie for producer nino d lorentis so milia suggested the possibility of dino de laurentiis to be conan's producer as he already had produced several fantasy movies like barbarella and flash gordon so after a year's worth of negotiations pressman and summer sold the conan project to dino de laurentiis who assigned his daughter rafaela as the producer along with ron cobb coming on board as production designer huma just worked on alien yeah look this movie's production is really long and complicated number five filming location the first bit of filming of conan the barbarian took place at shepparton studios in england it was the scene featuring conan as an older king the movie sets and location filming was to take place in yugoslavia but there was a fear of tensions taking place at the location due to the recent death of the location's former head of state and it was also felt that the country's movie industry wasn't equipped enough to tackle a big budget motion picture so instead it was decided to take the filming to spain which would have been more economically viable however it took the production several months to relocate from yugoslavia to spain a warehouse outside madrid was used as the production's headquarters as well as 11 million dollars going into the productions filming in spain including building sets at the location 49 sets to be precise the sets used for the movie look amazing and give the movie that old school fantasy sorcery feel that was popular in the 80s several historical sites were also chosen for filming which gives the movie that added touch of it being an ancient story with a medieval setting and incidentally once filming had wrapped up the crew burned down the on location sets that were built which i think is a shame i mean couldn't they have at least kept some of them if anything for tourist attractions number four arnie gets acting help from his co-stars cohn and the barbarian had quite an impressive lineup of co-stars including but not limited to james l jones who played the movie's villain folso doom at the time jones was getting great acclaim for voicing darth vader in the star wars movies along with max von sydow as the king just two years earlier he starred in fellow 80s fantasy movie flash gordon as ming this was arnold schwarzenegger's first role in a big budget mainstream movie so he had to get into the acting aspect as well as the physical fitness side of things universal pitchers were also worried about annie's thick austrian accent so clearly the muscle man needed all the help that he could get but thankfully both james o jones and max fonsaito became acting coaches to schwarzenegger behind the scenes to help assure that he pulls off a good performance schwarzenegger's fee for starring in the movie was 250 000 which is insane considering that he would go on to become one of the highest paid actors in later years with each performance being worth millions [Music] and interestingly enough part of his contract for starring in conan the barbarian stipulated that he couldn't star in other sword and sorcery movies i guess the production wanted to claim the image of arnie holding a sword as their own number three accidents and hazards yep accidents will happen and are often unavoidable especially on a movie set as there were a few scrapes along the way while filming conan the barbarian the swords used for the movie were made out of fiberglass as it was considered safer but that didn't stop valyria actress sandol bergman to slice her finger while sword fighting with an extra who didn't follow the sword fighting choreography also a stunt man was riding a horse at full speed which resulted in him smashing his face into a camera and schwarzenegger was attacked by one of the dogs on set the film also caught the attention of an animal rights group for its depiction of violence towards animals in certain scenes such as the infamous scene where conan punches a camel however the scene where conan bites a vulture was achieved by using a dead vulture as a prop of which after biting into the vulture cadaver arnie had to quickly wash out his mouth in order to avoid disease in fact in the documentary that reflects back on conan and the barbarian which i've been using clips for for this video there is an outtake shown at the end where arnie gets attacked by a microphone where he jokes that you can't even talk about conan without some kind of injury taking place number two it was to be a four-part film series [Music] two years after its release in 1984 conan the barbarian got a sequel with conan the destroyer many fans of the first movie liked the sequel just as much in fact i've even heard some people say they prefer conan the destroyer to cone and the barbarian and many agree that the two conan movies are a great two-parter of action fantasy movies and conan the destroyer is definitely a story for a future video however sadly it was initially planned for there to be four conan movies but after the disappointing box office intake of the second film following sequels were scrapped damn that's a shame the following year after the sequel schwarzenegger played a similar role in fellow sword and sorcery movie red sonja starring brigitte nielsen in the title role of red sonja a character who like conan was created by richard e howard red sonja very much looks like the same world scene in the two conan movies and when i was a kid i always looked at it as being like a spin-off movie however i couldn't figure out why arnie wasn't called conan supposedly red sonia was going to be a conan movie but it was changed to red sonja once again due to the reception of conan and the destroyer and schwarzenegger was still on contract i can remember when i was a kid there was a conan cartoon series but for some reason i just couldn't get into it i'm not saying it wasn't good but personally i just couldn't find the characters or stories to be particularly engaging but that might be because at that time the sword and sorcery genre wasn't too popular with kids shows thanks to more futuristic kid shows like mighty morphin power rangers in 1997 there was a live action tv series called conan the adventurer which i never even heard of till now the show only lasted one season and consisted of 22 episodes from clips i've seen of the show it looks quite similar to the hercules tv series that was out at the same time then in 2011 there was a conan the barbarian reboot but the movie was a financial flop not managing to recoup its budget and the movie mainly got negative reviews from critics i can remember at the time some people were saying they found the movie to be meh and that they were disappointed it wasn't connected to the first two movies however the following year it was announced that there would be another conan movie which would be a continuation from the two schwarzenegger films called the legend of conan with arnie reprising his role this got many fans of the original series excited but as the years passed nothing happened in 2016 schwarzenegger assured fans that the sequel is going forward but the following year in 2017 it was announced that the movie was dropped but the possibility was open for a tv series instead but as of 2020 nothing has happened so in the meantime we're just going to have to enjoy the two schwarzenegger conan movies that we already have number one release conan the barbarian was released by 20th century fox in north america and by universal pitchers internationally in 1982 and was fairly successful bringing in a box office number that sat somewhere between 68 to 71 million dollars on its 20 million dollar budget the special effects of the movie along with its designs settings were all praised but the violent nature of the movie got criticized well i hope those people who did all the complaining didn't go and see the thing which also came out that year otherwise they were in for one hell of a bumpy ride if they thought conan was too violent the story was also considered a weak part of the movie but generally the movie was well received by fans of the sword fantasy genre and conan fans and as i often say when i make these videos the popularity of conan the barbarian has increased in time and is a fan favorite and has the honor of putting arnold schwarzenegger into the mainstream spotlight and igniting his career which would lead him to star in other movies like the terminator and predator conan is a fun adventure movie which creates a believable world that's easy to get invested in it's definitely one of the best in its genre but above all it was a starting point of the action movie career of arnold schwarzenegger and after conan the barbarian the world of action movies was never going to be quite the same ever again conan is a fun movie with lots of action magic and arnold schwarzeneggerisms so if you are a fan of his other action movies and haven't seen conan the barbarian but are curious to see where it all started then i say check out conan the barbarian it's a great movie anyway i'm minty and has anyone else noticed that conan is the second movie where james old jones plays a villain who tells the heroic protagonist that he is his son weird eh see ya [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Minty Comedic Arts

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Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020