There’s been a flurry of news about the new Conan The Barbarian sequel lately, if by “flurry” you mean “confirmation some other retirement-age people from the first one will be in this one, too.” But now comes word that Conan will soon have his own shared cinematic universe to run around in as well, because it’s 2015 and the laws of Hollywood dictate that everyone has to copy Marvel studios. Thus, it’s no great shock that Deadline reports all properties created by Robert E. Howard may soon be part of a shared universe, including Conan, Kull The Conqueror, Solomon Kane, and more.
Fredrik Malmberg, who is producing that upcoming Conan sequel with writer-director Chris Morgan, recently acquired Paradox Entertainment, the company that owns the rights to all Howard properties. Naturally, he’d like to get all these titles turned into movies as soon as possible. Further, as per the iron law of every single new film in development, Malmberg wants the movies to intersect. “We look at how Marvel played out with its rich base of characters,” he says, automatically triggering the release of another million dollars into Kevin Feige’s bank account, “and this too is a universe that lends itself to exploitation in TV and film.”
We’d like to compliment Malmberg on his plainspoken choice of the word “exploitation,” rather than “do justice to these characters” or “honor the source material,” or any of the other phrases Hollywood executives use to disguise the fact that they plan to treat these properties with the same respect of someone urinating on the F train.