The meetings have been taken. The lists have been winnowed. The director has been signed.
Marcus Nispel will direct Conan the Barbarian. I get this from an impeccable source, one who assures me that this isn’t speculation or rumor. Nispel has signed on the line that is dotted.
This moves Conan into the next gear; the movie looked like it might stall when Brett Ratner, who had been developing it for Millenium for some time, backed out of the project. The company still wanted to shoot as early as this summer, but without a director or a star things looked rough for the production. Now that Nispel is on board things can get back to moving forward, although I don’t know if an August start date is still in the cards.
We should be getting an announcement on just who is playing the Barbarian himself soon, though. I’ve been hearing that an unknown will be the way Millenium and Lionsgate go.
I’m assuming that Nispel stepping in on Conan means his Dracula midquel, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, is getting back burnered.