The trailers have looked terrible thus far, but audiences seem to be digging swords-and-sandals pics these days both on the big and small screen. As we already know “300” was a massive hit, “Spartacus” on Starz! is one of the network’s biggest shows and “Immortals” and “Wrath Of The Titans” (yes, that title is now official) are on the way with “300: Battle Of Artemisia” in development. All this to say that if next week’s “Conan The Barbarian” is a hit, actor Jason Momoa might add screenwriter to his job title.
In an interview with Crave (via ComingSoon) the buff actor reveals he’s wielded his mighty pen to put together a script for a potential sequel. “I wrote it,” he said. “…so we’re waiting to see if they’ll accept it.”
Of course, that will depend on how many tickets are sold, but Momoa candidly reveals that originally there were plans for more mythical creatures in ‘Conan’ but another movie got there first. However, if everything goes to plan, you can expect more of that kind of thing in the next go round. “It’s character-adapted, because I really want to get into more of the mythical creatures, you know?,” Momoa explains about his script. “We wanted to go there [in the first one], but having ‘Clash of the Titans,’ and coming out against that, we wanted to put the budget into some other things. We couldn’t get to that level with […] the visual effects and stuff. […] I don’t want to give anything away, but we already have our Conan, really it’s about the villain, what that villain is going to extract from Conan, and where as an actor I want to go with Conan. You know, no one’s going to know what I want to do better than me.”
“We want to incorporate three different things, because obviously you don’t just want to do the [existing] story, because the fans already know it. You want to keep them on their toes. So, I think we have a good lock on it. Also, I feel it’s beautiful… How many actors get to go in there and go, ‘I’m part of the writing process?’ and care that much about the character, because he is a fan himself?,” he says adding, “I want to @#$%ing make a great Conan movie.”
It’s hard to knock an actor who is genuinely enthusiastic for a project, even if it’s something like ‘Conan’ but fans should note, screenwriting isn’t just some vanity effort on behalf of Momoa. The actor has written, directed, produced and starred in a short already, “Brown Bag Diaries: Ridin’ the Blinds in B Minor,” so he knows his way around Final Draft. So yeah, we’re willing to give Moma the benefit of the doubt here. Certainly, whatever he has come up with can’t be any worse than what Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood have cooked up.