Amazon could have Conan the Barbarian as a hard-hitting reply to Game of Thrones before it was scrapped due to some pretty messed up issues. If the name sounds similar to you, then yes, this series was set to follow the same source material that was followed by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1982 critically and commercially acclaimed movie. But unfortunately, the project moved to the hands of Netflix as Amazon Studios Head found Toxic Masculinity in the project.
It was reported that Amazon Studios cleverly wanted to tap every audience in the Fantasy genre by introducing shows for both family audiences and adults. While The Lord of The Rings was slated to look after the family zone, Conan was supposed to lead the mature front which unfortunately never made it to the finishing line.
What exactly caused Amazon Studios to scrap Conan the Barbarian?
Conan the Barbarian is a gritty comic book series that brought sword and sorcery culture to mainstream American comics. It was reported in 2018 that Amazon is planning to work on the character of the Barbarian before it was soon moved over to Netflix.
The whole event resurfaced after the Youtube channel Midnight’s Edge posted a video on this. The founder of the channel Andre Einherjar explained the whole matter that Amazon’s initial planning was to capture the entire Fantasy market by targeting both mature and family audiences. Unfortunately, the mature audience was planned to be captured with The Wheel of Time instead of the Conan series.
Further, he also mentioned that the person who introduced the idea of the show came under the grasp of the #MeToo movement which led to a makeover of the staff. Here entered Jennifer Salke who saw the project as Toxic Masculinity and opted to trash the project which is a decision he harshly criticized:
“Where others saw the next Game of Thrones in Ryan Condal’s Conan scripts, Jennifer Salke saw only toxic masculinity. As such Ryan Condal was fired, Conan was scrapped, and Jennifer Salke picked The Wheel of Time to be Amazon’s more adult-oriented Game of Thrones replacement. Although she made sure to make it even more female-centric than it already was just to be sure there would be absolutely no toxic masculinity.”
Amazon Studios have also reportedly hired Ryan Condal, the Game of Thrones fame to work on that but unfortunately, now we can never know how his version would have worked out, but reportedly Netflix is actively working on the project.
Conan the Barbarian under the Netflix umbrella
Also Read: Amazon’s God Of War Series: Deadliest Greek Gods We Need To See
According to reports, the project is actively under work with Netflix backing it up. Netflix is not only working with a live-action series but also with some animated adaptations. Recently the producer of the show Frederik Malmberg announced that the show is in the writing stage:
“With Conan, I’m happy to say that we are writing. We are in development, which means we basically work with a writer, who has written the first draft of the pilot of the series, and then a season overview.”
With the development proceeding, it will not be long before the show hits the platform and it will also raise a friendly rivalry with another fantasy Witcher which also streams on Netflix.
Source: Midnight’s Edge
