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Lionsgate execs today are despondent as they try to figure out what went wrong for Conan The Barbarian to only earn a dismal $10.5M from 3,015 theaters. “It’s one of those weekends that gives me a stomach ache,” one Lionsgate exec told me Friday night. “It’s a headscratcher, but it won’t kill us.” But they also know that with Carl Icahn back breathing down Lionsgate’s mane by buying up company shares, and the annual stockholders meeting scheduled for Sept. 13, this is a really lousy time for this secondary studio to have such a box office bomb. Over the last two weeks, Icahn has acquired 756,840 shares in Lionsgate, growing his ownership to 33.2% from 32.6%, presumably in his so-far-unsuccessful effort to gift his son Brent with a Hollywood studio. Last year, Icahn tried but failed to seize control and, after a brief respite, he’s trying yet again, all the while carping about Lionsgate’s profligate management and moviemaking strategy. Here’s more ammunition for him. First off, being in business with Avi Lerner’s Nu Image/Millennium film company is a dicey proposition at best. Especially when this reboot cost nearly $90M, which makes this weekend’s opening disastrous even if Lionsgate’s exposure was mitigated by the co-production and co-release. Not even spreading the buzz that previous Conan the Barbarian Arnold Schwarzenegger was treated to a private screening and “really liked it” helped box office, which didn’t come near to even Lionsgate’s low-ball expectation of $15M from a wide release.
This R-rated 3D reboot of the 1930s Robert E. Howard original source material, portraying the character as the Cimmerian warrior, was supposed to have a devoted fanbase. And tracking showed strong interest from African-American and Hispanic male moveiegoers. There seemed to be a ton of interest when Deadline’s Mike Fleming broke first news of the remake. That is, until Conan was cast. Even Lionsgate admits that the film absolutely hinged on finding the right Conan, and fanboys reacted horribly to then virtual unknown Jason Momoa even though he has since become a break-out star from his role on HBO’s Game of Thrones. Problem: “There’s so much history with this character and this brand they needed someone who could both really ‘own’ Conan (making him feel relatable for this generation), but also who offered continuity with what fans already know and love. Because there’s no competing with Arnold, Jason’s performance bypasses all of the comparisons, playing the character in a very different way than Arnold did and instead taking inspiration from the written source,” a Lionsgate exec emailed me. I happen to think the studios should have bet on a wrestling The Rock-style star with a ready-made fanbase.
The concensus among Avi Lerner and Joe Drake, who had successfully released The Expendables together, is that Conan The Barbarian didn’t have the “brand equity” they hoped it would. The pair had convinced themselves that the brand was ripe for a reboot and that the fans were ready for it, so they rescued the film from the major development purgatory it had been caught in for so long. The backstory is that Paradox Entertainment bought the rights in 2002 when the brand was hitting rock-bottom, with a bevy of licensed products in the marketplace but also quality and consistency issues at every turn. The duo’s first move was to take everything off the market. Then they connected with select partners to introduce the rehabilitated Conan via just three laser-focused licensed products that appealed to a core demo of young adult males (comics, toys, and a computer game). Marketing generated considerable awareness, with a significant Comic-Con presence (which included: talent appearances, bar invasion promotions, interactive fan experiences at the booth). They targeted Hispanic outreach with Momoa traveling to Miami. They also released an online redband clip to reassure young males fearing this reboot would be sanitized. But it was all for naught. In the end, the execution was just poor, poor, poor. Rotten Tomatoes showed only 26% positive reviews. The director was remake specialist Marcus Nispel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th) and the credited screenwriters were Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Sean Hood, and Andrew Lobel.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Jason Momoa is a sexy man but they made him look all nasty for the movie.
A fuckable Conan is a successful Conan.
I agree. He is very good looking but the commercials made him look ugly. His muscles should have been more defined. And NO 3-D! It makes everything TOO DARK!
Don’t make the pretty boy ugly. Duh!
I was actually really interested in Conan, and I was very excited when I found out that, after so many years, it was finally going to be made. My excitement levels didn’t go down when the new Conan was cast. My excitement levels went down when Nispel was picked as director. He’s only ever had one hit (which was a remake), another remake which wasn’t really a failure nor a success and his only original film, Pathfinder, was a complete failure in every department. Why did Legendary give him the job?
LEGENDARY gave him a job because of PATHFINDER; he’s cheap and they can control him every step of the way. The “dark” look on PATHFINDER was by way of the DP, and the editor
probably saved the movie in post. Or actually made it there. It went and made money on the globe to growing, diversified audiences world wide wanting more of these genre flicks.
The 3D conversion was so painful to watch, I didn’t even notice the movie.
The boys who greenlight movies in this town need to get out more. People forget that Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER when Dino DeLaurentiis cast him in the original “Conan the Barbarian” written by Oliver Stone and John Milius. The icon now known as “Arnold” was created by him and Milius as the film went along, which is why it was a shame that the two of them couldn’t reteam for “King Conan: Crown of Iron” which is a knockout script (props to Casey Moore, above). Jason Mimosa, or whatever his name is, is as colorless as the film. Granted, Conan 2.0 is closer to Howard than Milius’ and Stone’s Conan, but Milius was smart enough to know that he had to make his own myth, then add character, grandeur, and humor about itself.
First weekends are always about marketing. They assumed there was fan base broad enough to support a reboot. It’s a textbook case of seeing what you wanted to see to justify some bad decisions. First weekend is not about the quality of the film. The trailers and posters just didn’t promise anything particularly new or different for people who don’t already know the character. A late-summer burial didn’t help.
You can perhaps draw parallels with “Grindhouse” flopping over and dying. Tarantino keeps the blogosphere fired up, but they spent a ton of money on a film paying homage to something very, very few people recall with any fondness. They assumed a broad audience would share the same passion for so-bad-it’s-good cinema as a wonky film nut like Tarantino. And they overspent like crazy.
With “Conan,” honestly, they got the box office you can expect for a genre film when you market primarily to the Comic-Con crowd, the crowd that remembers the original film, and has read the novels/comic books, and has a sense of history and perspective on the character. There wasn’t much else to appeal to a broader moviegoing audience.
At least if someone had had the balls and the foresight to knock out a quick and dirty reboot for $20 million, Nikki would hailing them as shrewd today.
I saw this on Friday night and I think Jason was great in the role in a very limited and ho-hum movie. The plot and writing was what failed, not Jason. He has great charisma on screen. Proof is his role as Drago in Game of Thrones. He made Conan an enjoyable viewing experience for me, and it’s not just because of his pretty boy features or body.
He has almost no lines in Game of Thrones. Once he was required to deliver lines in Conan, he failed miserably. Momoa is a flash in the pan mirage who should be modeling instead of trying to act.
Maybe the craving by the young adult demographic for violent movies is over , or that the internet is replacing it ?!
The ones who should really be sweating are Disney with John Carter coming out. If Conan is an overrated brand, what the hell is the audience going to make out of the cult Burroughs series that takes a distant second in recognition factor to Tarzan? Plus, that advance trailer is horrible.
Have seen the trailer for JOHN CARTER and it looks crappy in every way. Ohhh, but Brad Bird from Pixar is directing it, and he has an Oscar for animation, so therefore it’ll be huge.
This is what happened to CONAN
most people I talk to was thinking it was a Tv series and not a Movie.
they were awaiting a mini series, and they weren’t about to see that movie in the Theater.
Maybe they should have remade Commando. Really, just pick from any Arnold film that was ridiculous back then and remake it.
I’m all for a Conan reboot, stories should be retold for new generations. Shakespeare, Beckett, et al. But, man, you give this project to a Baywatch cover-boy and a director who may be great selling products but has no business whatsoever in narrative filmmaking (he’s had THREE TRIES already) and you actually expected this to be a hit?? LG’s idea of a fresh take is to make it extremely violent?? That’s not a take, that’s not a perspective, that’s just lazy, that’s LCD. When your goal is to make a great film, tell a great story, the money is the byproduct. Just ask Pixar. When you just want to exploit a property for cash this is what you get. Somewhere along the process you need to hire some people who actually care about the material. Normal people, whether they can speak the industry language or not, can smell this disingenuous shit a mile away.
What is the link between Shakespeare and Beckett, may I ask? Because I’m not sure exactly what Hollywood films are retelling Endgame or Mouth.
Karma is a bitch, ain’t it, Avi. Hope you lost every cent.
Let the re-makes die.
I would suggest prepping the autopsy for the next two coming out – Warrior September 9th and Abduction September 23rd. One looks like poor date selection, the other just looks poor.
The buzz on Warrior is building, actually. I’ve heard friends talking. Non-cinephiles, mind you.
And Abduction…a little birdy told me that the movie is awful, but that the teenage test audience was freaking out and cheering throughout the film.
This is a problem that a lot of producers run into. They make a movie that appeals to people who can’t get in. I am 33. In my tween era, in the small town I grew up in, I never had any trouble getting into certain R rated flicks. Violent films, no problem. Flicks really heavy with sex or nudity, problem.
This movie will make tweens go gaga. And they can’t get in. I bet a lot snuck in, which is why Cowboys and Aliens did surprisingly poorly, while Smurfs did well. Buy tickets for one, sneak into the other. Conan wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. It was a great popcorn flick for the tween male set, and they can’t get in.
The internet and cable have raised this groups’ expectations for movie entertainment. Only, now, what they expect is a film so heavy on language, violence, or sex, that they aren’t old enough to get in. They are willing to wait for Netflix to watch it on their enormous TVs with their friends while their parents catch up on sleep come the weekend.
A star is not needed on this as much as a really good actor who may be an unknown.
A director with one helluva a vision witout justifying the 90 mil. budget would be even better. Arnie was not a huge star with the original CONAN, nor was he with THE TERMINATOR. Again, this all starts with the script. Story, story, story. They just should’ve gone back to the original dark and terrifying brutality of this story world. No need for all the big bucks.
I got the toxicity reports and it reads AVI LERNER. That guy has no clue how to make a good movie. He may make a load of money by scamming other people to pay for his shlock and then selling it to even more gullible foreigners, but he’s still a hack no matter how you slice it. The Expendables was an outlier and he is always going to be a B minus at best list producer
Obviously you don’t know much about Mr. Lerner. With him it’s all about the art! Money doesn’t matter at Nu-Image!
One of Millenium’s first theatrical ventures was a remake and it remains to this day my favorite film, Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man. Check it out if you haven’t already!
There’s really no reason why Conan is floundering at the box office, other than it was another remake. I may be crazy but maybe, just maybe the general audience is getting tired of re-treads, re-makes and re-imaginings of less than stellar past hits. Terminator Salvation flopped because they didn’t have Arnold in it for more than a cameo towards the end.
If they wanted a great script for Conan then they should have gone to George R. R. Martin and go with one of R.E. Howard’s better Conan stories, such as “Conan of Cimmeria,” “Conan The Warrior,” “Conan The Usurper,” “Conan of Aquilonia,” “Conan The Avenger,” “Red Nails,” etc. Tell great Conan stories that haven’t already been made as movies.
This is something that Ridley Scott knows all too well and hence the reason for ‘Promethius,’ as opposed to a re-make of Alien. The problem arises when you have the rights to everything Conan and thus as a producer, they don’t want to forego or bypass the origin story because they paid for it as part of the overall package.
But sometimes for the betterment of the series as a whole you sometimes have to skip doing the origin story again because it’s already been done before and doing it again only becomes unnecessarily redundant.
Get what I did there? That was a perfect example of redundancy.
I stand by NuImage/Millenium and their desire to rekindle an interest in the Conan franchise, it’s just that there were some bad decisions made in the execution. If I were them, I wouldn’t give up on the character just yet and now that they have that behind them do something like Bran Mak Morn next, then come back and do another Conan, without the 3D and skip the gimmicks because the audience is fed up with gimmicks and just want solid stories.
The studios have to be sympathetic to what’s going on with the general public, meaning the majority of us are going through great financial difficulties during this world wide economic down turn or recession and as such most of us are not going to go and pay extra for 3D and sit in a theater and pay for over priced concession food and drink. Also if you’re trying to appeal to a pre-existing fan base, stay true to the source material that garnered that fan base.
And please Hollywood, start making original stories again. Stop worrying about branded crap. People love to be surprised and the only way to do that is to tell exciting and original stories.
Imagine sitting around a fire as a primitive human being, hearing an exciting tale of a hunt or battle fought for the very first time, told by an exciting story teller. It’s great the first two or three times you hear it but after the tribe hears the same story, over and over again, they begin mouthing the words behind the story teller’s back. Soon their numbers dwindle away and the story teller is left alone with no one to tell his story to.
Fantasy films like Conan are too expensive to give more than one chance, and I doubt Lerner is sentimental about the property. Though the film may do well internationally which is bigger money at this point.
I think the Lerner style of film-making actually works pretty well for international auds, simple stories, limited dialogue with lots of action.
The problem is Lerner’s cheapness must have kicked in when it came to casting. After this I doubt we’ll see a $100 million dollar production from Millenium anytime soon.
All the above comments are excellent. I just don’t get the initial thinking when some clown came to a meeting and said, “What about a remake of CONAN THE BARBARIAN,” and for some unexplainable reason, someone important said, “Hell, yes, what a brilliant idea.”
What were they thinking from Day One? I saw this coming. How could they not? Their target audience is too young to remember Arnold’s version and those who did remember learned their lesson the first time around. So where were they going to get their built-in market for a film this expensive??? Just very stupid thinking from the very beginning.
Arnold was indeed famous when the original CONAN was filmed. He had a huge reputation from the films STAY HUNGRY and PUMPING IRON. Competitive bodybuilding had audiences at fever pitches. No one had ever seen a body like Arnold’s before (or since). There was quite a risk taken by giving him a dramatic part and it was up to Milius to tailor the dialogue to Arnold’s abilities as did Cameron brilliantly in the first TERMINATOR later. Whatever Arnold’s shortcomings he was a megastar in a variety of roles after that. The one sheet for the original CONAN was a masterpiece as well. The present CONAN was completely unfocused and there was no apparent reason for a remake.
The biggest problem is that no one wanted that damn remake. No one even remembers original movie. It was popular in that time. Tv shows like Zena and Hercules were hugely popular in their own time 10 years ago. If they would air these TV shows now – no one would watch.
Now it’s different time.
Chris Klein would have worked. Nothing else.
From the first announcement of the remake to the god-awful trailers, the real problem is that no one wants to see this movie because it looked like trash from the start. Also the fact that…
Conan The Barbarian (1982) is a GREAT film. With an excellent supporting cast (in particular James Earl Jones). It was a huge hit at the time, and many people (my self included) list it in their top favorites.
It was crafted with care and has many more layers than the hack and slash-trash remake. Also…
Arnold IS Conan. It was such an iconic character because of the way he played him. If you haven’t seen the original (most people who bash the original have only seen the vastly inferior sequel: Conan The Destroyer), check it out now. It still resonates and holds up to this day.
What people would actually line up to see is KING CONAN: CROWN OF IRON, the unproduced John Milius script (writer/director of the excellent first film) with Arnold in the lead as the older Conan.
This crap-fest that opened last weekend would be like recasting Indiana Jones with Channing Tatum…it just doesn’t work. As a fan of the original, I and just about everyone I know (according to Lionsgate in their infinite wisdom…the supposed intended audience for this reboot?) avoided this movie like the disease it is.
A disease that the money crunchers in hollywood fail to recognize as a terminal lack of ideas. Think of all the amazing unproduced screenplays by great undiscovered writers that have nothing to do with “brand recognition” or “built in audiences”, but instead rely on something that these people have completely lost track of: a GOOD STORY.
The only Conan I want to see is a return to form by the original stars and filmmakers. And if no one listens…then the hell with them. Better to spend 90 million on something new instead of pissing on the legacy of something done brilliantly the first time.
The hilarious fact that Momoa was just boasting all over the press about how he was going to personally write the sequel shows just how far off everyone’s expectations were for him and this film. I thought we’d moved a little beyond the grunting body building movie star but apparently they’re writers too.