My dad took my sister and me to a Sunday afternoon double feature once as a reward for being awesome kids. Presumably. I don’t recall how we convinced him to take us, but the bigger question here is do theaters even do double features anymore? Two movies for the price of one? Am I just that old? First up was Steven Spielberg’s E.T: The Extraterrestrial, and as expected all three of us loved it. The theater was packed, and as the end credits rolled it was clear that everyone would be staying for the second film as well. That second movie, inexplicably, was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian. The first hint that this might not be a good idea struck my dad around the thirty minute mark when Conan enters the dwelling of a loose woman… and his fears were confirmed three minutes later when Arnold starts thrusting his bare-ass between the naked witch’s legs. Reluctantly, my dad stood, gave the witch’s sweaty flesh one last glance, and then led us on a long walk of shame up the aisle to the exit. I tell you that so I can tell you this… my dad would not have felt it necessary to do the same thing during the brand new incarnation of Robert E. Howard‘s classic tale. It’s far more cartoonish than offensive. And that’s not even the most surprising thing about the new movie… Marcus Nispel‘s Conan the Barbarian is also a fairly entertaining and enjoyable romp filled with [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr flexes his rippling muscles and sets out to live a warrior lifestyle, just like Jason Momoa in Conan the O’Barbarian. But before he can do that, he has to drive a stake through his neighbor’s heart, since he’s certain he lives next door to a vampire. What else could all those sparkles be about? Meanwhile, he sends his kids off to a dangerous 3D, Aroma-Vision mission, hoping they can make it as real spy kids so they can teach him to put on a fake British accent and woo a not-quite-British Anne Hathaway.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, Jason Momoa talks Conan, director Joann Sfar talks Gainsbourg, concept designer Jerad Marantz talks rising Apes and Spidey’s costume, and action icon Renny Harlin discusses his latest film 5 Days of War. Plus, our old friend Scott Weinberg goes up against FSR’s own Gwen Reyes in a Movie News Pop Quiz that leads us to talking about sexy animated characters. Don’t judge. You know you think Ariel is the bee’s knees. Listen Here: Download This Episode

Marcus Nispel is known as a work-for-hire type of director. The type of filmmaker that’s brought onto a project to craft a studio’s vision versus his own. Coming from the world of Platinum Dunes’ micromanagement, he’s worked on films that are not meant for auteurs. The projects he’s been a part of are calculated products, and Nispel is more than aware of it. The Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remaker knows how the game goes for his franchise starter films. With Conan the Barbarian, Nispel got the chance to make a different type of blockbuster: a hard-R that features a misogynistic, barbaric lead. However, the director still was a “dog on many leashes,” as he described the process. Hopefully, Nispel still managed to create a version of Conan that lives up to the idea of an R-rated tent-pole release about a barbarian who thirsts for blood. Here’s what Nispel had to say about avoiding film school, making someone else’s vision, and how filmmaking is like raising children:

If you knew actor Jason Momoa just from his performance as Khal Drogo on HBO’s Game of Thrones, you might wonder if the guy was even able to talk. Clearly he’s talented at looking big and strong and menacing, but what kind of a wordsmith could he be if not playing a horse lord from a different land? We’ll be getting a lot more of an idea how he handles language once Momoa takes the starring role in the upcoming Conan the Barbarian, and hopefully he impresses enough doing a lot of talking in that, because it’s looking like he’s going to be writing the story for the sequel. Momoa spilled the news when talking to Crave Online. When talking about the story he’s come up with for a possible Conan sequel, Momoa says that he would be looking for more mythic creatures for Conan to clash with the second go around. On why they’re waiting for a sequel to jump heavy into the mythology of the Conan universe, Momoa says, “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 just couldn’t hit… We couldn’t get to that level with the visual effects and stuff.” Of course, doing big budget effects in the sequel, and even making a sequel at all, will depend on how well Conan the Barbarian does at the box office. It looks like if [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

In the rapid fire world of journalism, heh, sometimes you only get a few minutes with talent to get to the really great information. Then sometimes you only get a few minutes shoved into a tiny room overflowing with people shouting very general questions that offer little in the way of what we call “interesting information.” Today was one of those days when I got to share a room for about five minutes with Jason Momoa. Luckily the very tall and friendly star of Conan the Barbarian shot out some interesting information in this short period of time that we’re offering you up here.

As was reported in last night’s Movie News After Dark column, a television actress by the name of Sarah Shahi that Neil Miller has some sort of creepy, obsessive crush on has been cast to play Sylvester Stallone’s daughter in the upcoming Walter Hill film The Movie Formerly Known as Headshot: Formerly Directed by Wayne Kramer. Clearly, the project has had a few hiccups getting all of the pieces together to move ahead with filming. But there are a few things about it that we know for sure. The first is that it’s an adaptation of the graphic novel “Bullet to the Head”, which was penciled by Colin Wilson and written by something called Matz. Because of this we also know that it is the story of a New Orleans based hitman who teams up with a police officer to take down the killer of their respective partners. Stallone has always been set to play the hitman, that’s for sure. And the cop is either going to be portrayed by Thomas Jane, or somebody with more of an ethnic flavor like Fast Five’s Sung Kang, we don’t really have any solid news on that. But what there is some new news on is who will be playing the role of the killer, Keegan. The Latino Review is reporting that actor Jason Momoa, whose gargantuan size and intimidating presence has led to him playing the horse lord Khal Drogo on the HBO series Game of Thrones and Conan the Barbarian in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Up to this point I haven’t been all that excited about the upcoming remake of Conan the Barbarian. All of the ads have made it look like a pretty generic swordplay film that could sit alongside the B-level stuff I’d watch on cable as a kid on Sunday afternoons. But then, on last week’s episode of Game of Thrones, we got a great fight scene where Conan star Jason Momoa gleefully slit a guy’s throat and then reached in and pulled out all of his neck guts and his tongue and stuff. It really whetted my appetite to see Momoa slash some more stuff up. And coincidentally enough, now IGN brings us a red band trailer for Conan that gives us almost exclusively tons of that. Momoa growls to us in this trailer that, “When a Barbarian feels thirst, it is a thirst for blood.” It’s a pretty sweet tag line, but it’s also backed up by constant images of Conan hacking and slashing his way through the countryside. This movie seems to be all swirling swords and fountains of the red, sticky stuff. At one point Conan even seems to get amorous when he sees a lady put a sword through a downed opponent’s skull. That’s the sort of dedication to bloodletting that I can get behind. And in addition to the blood showers, we also get a glimpse of burned villages, sacrificed virgins, and what seems to be a much larger scale recreation of the trash compactor scene [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

In today’s contest of wills, we have 5 contestants all trying to mean mug as best as possible. Conan (Jason Momoa) cries out in battle, Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) attempts to pass a gallstone, Corin (Ron Perlman) unleashes his Planet of the Apes face, Marique (Rose McGowan) stuns with her facial tattoos, and Tamara (Rachel Nichols) didn’t get the memo that she needed to be scary. These character posters for Conan the Barbarian are actually pretty intense, showing off some solid costume and make-up design as well as the unnerving battle faces of some of its stars. Which one is the scariest?

The idea of a Conan the Barbarian reboot isn’t necessarily a bad one. The original, despite its classic status, is lots of fun but not quite a great film. It’s an epic hack-n-slash adventure filled with bloody battles, magical villains, and mountainous cleavage. The character of Conan and the tales of Robert E. Howard offer serious franchise potential (Conan the Destroyer notwithstanding) so a remake to gauge interest seems like a no-brainer. That said, the behind the scenes “talent” assembled for the new film doesn’t exactly inspire hope that they’ll deliver a big, beefy, entertaining hit. Director Marcus Nispel’s highest profile film until now was the recent Friday the 13th remake which was… not too bad all things considered. But the screenwriters’ past credits don’t fare even that well. Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer previously brought us Sahara, A Sound Of Thunder, and the just opened (and just closed) Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night…

Wipe away that mental image of Conan O’Brien slicing through bad guys, and replace it quickly with these new pictures from the Marcus Nispel-directing Conan reboot. What’s great about them? The blood. The gritting teeth. The savage nature of man escaping to cut down his foes and drink from their skull caps. Why is Jason Momoa wearing a manica for the role? It’s unclear, but check out the pictures for yourself for a glimpse at revenge lust and a few villains.

Movie lovers wanting to violently tear out their hair whenever an adult property is watered-down for the PG-13 cash will find themselves rejoicing next to the bearded miscreants who love drinking 60 Minute IPA from a giant novelty beer stein. That’s because FSR is organizing a march on Washington, DC to take back Hollywood from infantilizing films that should be sexed up instead of sexed down. Why are we doing it it Washington, DC instead of Hollywood? Ask the intern who bought the plane tickets. If these photos of the set of Conan are to be believed, we’ll also be inviting the fans of the upper half of the nude female form.

If it’s Lionsgate that is leaking all of these initial photos from the upcoming reboot Conan onto the web, it’s a somewhat brilliant marketing strategy. Another image appears on a slow news day and look at that, we’re once again talking about their movie. This time it’s two in the span of three days — two new photos of Jason Momoa looking bloody, wet and menacing as the famous barbarian.

Regular viewers of Stargate: Atlantis would tell you that Jason Momoa is a big guy. He’s always been pretty big. But as big as he’s always been, Momoa has certainly added a few pounds to his body in order to take the title role in Marcus Nispel’s Conan. How do I know this, you ask? Just look at this first official image. The guy’s got some size.

The first images of Jason Momoa as the title character in the upcoming reboot Conan have hit the web. And we just can’t tell whether they are awesome, or maybe a little on the feminine side?

If there was a non-technical star in Avatar, it was Stephen Lang. As Colonel Quaritch, he brought a great deal of humor and murderous prowess. James Cameron’s movie needed a great villain in order to work, and he was the perfect man for the job. Now, there’s another movie that needs a villain. And once again, Lang looks perfect for the job.

The question everyone has wanted to ask: is Mickey Rourke crusty enough to play crazy William Smith?

In late January, it was reported that the Marcus Nispel directed remake of Conan had found its leading man. Jason Momoa, known for his work on Stargate: Atlantis, would be filling the gigantic, fury boots of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But as we now know, they were not done casting…

Can Momoa be our new Schwarzenegger? Can Nispel be our new John Milius?

Once again, Todd the Wraith contacts the Atlantis team. We thought he was dead, but his dangerous iratus bug healed him from his previous encounter. Todd confesses to Sheppard that he had modified a hive ship to use a ZPM as a power source, resulting in a super-hive that could become invulnerable.