Tis the season for bad director / film combination announcements, I suppose. AICN had the first rumblings that Brett Rater was being considered for the long-gestating Conan reboot and today it became official.
Now, I'm not a huge Ratner hater like some are, and I don't have a huge emotional connection to the original Conan like some do, and I don't think this is nearly as catastrophic a pairing as that wretched matching of Spielberg and Will Smith to the Oldboy remake - for the record I think both are talented but both also have a well established obsessive compulsive need for happy, tidy endings that makes them simply hideously inappropriate for this project, Justin Lin's looking real good right now - but still ... it just feels kind of icky.
I haven't been following this at all - although I am a huge Robert E. Howard fan thanks to the great Wandering Star/Del Rey reprints - fully illustrated by some of my favorite artists.
Given the nature of the original stories (and the Ahnold movie) - I'll be hoping for a *hard* R on this one - preferably based on an iconic tale right from Howard - although I suspect they'll probably go with one of the Conan as barbarian or king ones rather than one from his thief or pirate periods. Given how well films like 300 have performed (whether or not you agree with the methodology or quality of the film itself) - it seems reasonable to expect that we might be able to get something that covers the epic visual nature a little better than the original IMO (although granted, I only ever caught it on cable).
And more than likely, you'll get a medium rare PG-13!
I don't hate Ratner but I do strongly dislike his offscreen personality, just like how I can't stand listening to Queentin Tarantino or Eli Roth when they're offscreen. Ratner's a lesser filmmaker than both of them (Roth's HOSTEL 2 may have been kinda dull but it is the most technically well made film Roth has made and hence certainly not one that I can totally dismiss) but that doesn't mean I hate his films because of it. I just am waiting at this point for him to say how many ridiculous celebs he wants to drag into the production (Yao Ming, Yao Ming and Yao Ming).
Fuck.
Wow - what a huge failure. When I think of Ratner and what his actual role is, I'm not feeling good about this. Think about it - Ratner's role within the studio "MO" is to bail out a production on previously hot properties, which lost something significant during production - a director, original writer, bankable star, etc.
Studios hire Ratner because he's technically solid, but is essentially a pushover when it comes to doing whatever the execs deem are "good for returns." This often means studios use Ratner as a huge middle finger to the auteurs that were previously giving them trouble for such paltry things that johnny sixpack viewer couldn't give a shit about - like character motivation, solid plot, thematic structure, etc. /sarcasm.
The fact that Ratner is on this means there's something amiss in the boardrooms during negotiations about either story or plot elements - and I'm willing to be that the execs (as usual) want a PG-13 production or something related - basically the studio wants something toned down in the name of profits in the 'burbs.
So this "re-boot" will be awful, i'm thinking.
the original Conan was in my opinion, one of the greatest comic-book-based movies ever - holding company with Donner's Superman, Iron Man, Batman Begins, and The Crow.
This is not good news.
lone wolf and cup is the best comic adaptation imo if you take manga into account. I liked conan, I'm no ratner-hater but I would have liked to see someone else give it a shot. so now Rodriguez is developing RedSonja and Ratner Conan. could be this time around that red sonja turns otu to be better.