Conan the Barbarian to smash up Netflix in new TV series (news).
Exciting news just in, especially if you are a fan of a certain furry-panted and heavily muscled fantasy hero, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian.
Netflix has decided that the Robert E Howard character much beloved of many 1960s readers who rediscovered the pulp, as well as fans of Conan and the portrayal of the wild man by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is to be given a TV series on everyone’s favourite streaming service. The character was originally created by Robert E. Howard in 1932 for a series of fantasy stories published in Weird Tales magazine.
The rights to Conan the Barbarian are owned by a company called Malmberg Cabinet Entertainment (as in, Fredrik Malmberg), and they have done a deal with Netflix to bring the sword-slinging action to the service with both films and television series being optioned in live-action and animated formats. This gives Netflix quite a lot of scope going forward.
I’m not sure what happened to Amazon Studios’ idea of producing their own Conan the Barbarian series that was on the cards a few years ago. Maybe they decided that having scored the JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings rights, they had enough sword and sorcery on their hands to be going on with?
Tip of the hat to the magazine Deadline for breaking the story. It has since been confirmed by several other outlets who contacted their people at Netflix.
