Paul Verhoeven Open To Direct THE LEGEND OF CONAN Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger

TheArnoldFans were able to speak with legendary action director Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troopers, Robocop, Black Book, Flesh+Blood) and if he'd want a crack at direct Legend of Conan. It's shocking that Universal or Arnold haven't contacted him yet. The project could see Paul re-teaming with Schwarzenegger previously making the original Total Recall. Verhoeven seems optimistic if they offered it to him. Many consider Verhoeven a pioneer of the 80's action genre bringing in a element of satire to his extremely violent projects. Ending up with films that are still considered classics in the sci-fi action genre. If anyone could re-capture the magic of the Conan The Barbarian it would be Verhoeven. Arnold has recently revealed the studio is looking to shoot in New Zealand (possibly by the end of the year) and could have Weta Workshop involved in the production.

"If they asked me, I’d certainly love to – let’s put it that way," he says. "But I don’t know what the script is. I don’t know what Arnold wants. I’m a big fan in fact of Conan. That’s a great movie and I found that the composer, Basil Poledouris, basically inspired many of my movies [the soundtracks] like Flesh and Blood, RoboCop, Starship Troopers and Total Recall. The score of Conan is great. The style of editing that Milius used was very beautiful, and Arnold does a great job. He was really the perfect choice."

Starship Troopers Is Being Remade

Producer Neal H. Moritz is known for taking on rather large projects and reboots. He currently has Total Recall and Bryan Singer's Jack The Giant Killer to be released this summer. Along with a slew of other projects that include 21 Jump Street, R.I.P.D. (Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges), RED 2, Highlander and Escape From New York. Neal is about to develop a remake of yet another film from director Paul Verhoeven this time according to Vulture it will be Starship Troopers. The 90's cult classic was a massive misstep for Sony when the $100 million film didn't make a splash at the box office when it first came out but then later made a killing in the home video market. It spawned two direct-to-DVD sequels which neither had the scale or action of the first film. However, it might be in good hands as Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz will tackle the remake's script. The pair are credited for writing both Thor and X-Men First Class which were some of the biggest success stories of the year.



As a big fan of the original I'm unsure which angle they'll be going for here. I was shocked how much they would exclude in Total Recall from the original film going as far as getting rid of the violence for a PG-13 rating along with Mars. To see a PG-13 Starship Troopers film would be an odd thing considering this a science fiction war film. Films like Saving Private Ryan and Platoon showed the realistic side to war but had to be R for this to happen. Even in science fiction the rules still apply just look at Aliens (which channeled Vietnam) for example if we didn't see the marines taken out so harshly I don't think the film would have had the same impact. Avatar for all it's stunning special effects didn't have the same urgency Aliens had because the realism was lost in it's fantasy world of CGI.

My faith in the project will also come down to casting and the director. I feel like Sony could be working the Hunger Games/Ender's Game angle here and looking to hire very young actors for the leads. Not unlike the original which had a fresh faced group of young actors put into combat. I would hope that the studio went for talent rather flavors of the month. Since I believe this reboot is likely a new franchise in the making. I don't have a lot of directors coming to mind who could do this justice but newcomer Rupert Sanders is among them. Sanders who I hope will make a name for himself with Snow White And The Huntsman also did a great job on the some of the Halo live-action commercials.