Given that after 40 years, Masters of the Universe is making its long-awaited return to the big screen, it feels like anything is possible. While Masters of the Universe might be the most well-known franchise making a comeback, it’s not the only franchise looking to make a return in the fantasy genre, as after 42 years, a cult favorite sequel just received the most exciting update possible.

In an interview with TheArnoldFans.com during the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio, Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed that Fox has hired a writer and director for a new King Conan movie, and that writer-director is none other than Mission: Impossible – Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie. Schwarzenegger said, “They just hired a fantastic writer/director who did Tom Cruise’s last four movies. They just hired him (Christopher McQuarrie) to write and direct King Conan.” That’s huge if true, and means that after 42 years, fans will finally get to see the sequel to Conan the Destroyer.

What Is The Premise for the King Conan Movie?

Conan the Destroyer was released in 1984, and there was a sequel planned to make it a trilogy, which would have been titled Conan the Conqueror. Expiring deals and issues agreeing to a new one caused the script of Conan the Conqueror to become Kull the Conquerer, and while a third Conan film would be in development at various times, nothing ever came of it.

Now King Conan looks to be on the right track, and there’s an interesting idea at the center of it. The story follows King Conan after being the people’s leader for forty years, but he is forced out of the kingdom at some point in the story. When he returns, hard times have befallen the kingdom, and it’s up to Conan to restore peace and take out any number of deadly creatures and enemies along the way.

“With King Conan, its a great old story that Conan was forty years as King and now he gets forced out of the kingdom and there’s conflict, of course, but somehow he comes back and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic and creatures and stuff like that. And now, of course, there’s all kinds of special effects. The studio has plenty of money to make those movies really big so i’m looking forward to all of those projects,” Schwarzenegger said.

Now, it’s been a while since Schwarzenegger played the role of Conan, and he is in his late seventies these days. Schwarzenegger was asked about playing the role in the movie, and he said that the role would obviously need to be adapted for his age.

“Now, what they do is that they write the part,” Schwarzenegger said. “They don’t write them like I’m forty years old, you write it to be age-appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass but it will be different.”

This would also be a dream project for McQuarrie, as 10 years ago, during a Reddit AMA, McQuarrie was asked if he was a Conan fan and if he would consider director Schwarzenegger in a film. McQuarrie wrote, “I have always wanted to do a period epic. I spent years working on a script about Alexander the Great. I don’t think I have pumped at a proper gym since I was a kid.”

King Conan seems to be going with the timeline created by the original movie and the second one, though it likely won’t have anything to do with the 2011 Conan film that featured Jason Momoa in the lead role.

The new Conan project currently has no release date.

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