Conan Remake Chooses Director

Variety is reporting that Marcus Nispel has been chosen to direct “Conan,” after nine years of wrangling with Robert E. Howard’s estate on how to re-invent the character.

Production on the remake is set to start late this year in Bulgaria and South Africa. Nu Image/Millennium is making the film in a co-production with Lionsgate. Avi Lerner and Joe Gatta are producing with Fredrick Malmberg. Malmberg runs Paradox, the company that holds the rights to “Conan” and the other hero franchises in the Howard library.

This isn’t Nispel’s first re-imagining. He was also behind “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Friday the 13th.”

Nispel said he will blend his childhood imaginings of the character with the influence of the famous Conan illustrations by Frank Frazetta, and the influence of such viscerally violent period films as Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.”