Casting Conan #1 - Hither Came Amazon Studios' Conan

Hi everyone! Welcome to Casting Conan, a periodic blog series where we will speculate and ruminate on Amazon’s upcoming Conan television series. 

For the inaugural post in the Casting Conan series, let's examine the announcement regarding the upcoming Conan series from Amazon.

What We Know
The upcoming Conan the Barbarian television series being produced for Amazon will serve as a “reboot” of the character rather than a sequel to any of the prior film adaptations. The news was first reported on Deadline Hollywood by Nellie Andreeva on February 5, 2018.

Amazon seems eager to jump on the sword and sorcery / fantasy bandwagon following the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones. A Lord of the Rings series is also in production.

Here are the details thus far:

The Production Team
Ryan Condal - Conception, writing, co-executive producer. Condal is the co-creator of Colony on USA Network, and served as screenwriter for Hercules starring The Rock. He is currently working on the screenplay for a film remake of Logan’s Run for Warner Bros.

Miguel Sapochnik - Co-executive producer, director. Sapochnik directed an exciting episode of Game of Thrones, titled “Battle of the Bastards”, for which he won an Emmy and DGA Award for outstanding directing. He also directed the first episode of Altered Carbon for Netflix.

Warren Littlefield - co-executive producer, executive producer for Fargo on FX and The Handmaid’s Tale for Hulu, both earning Emmy recognition for outstanding limited series and outstanding drama series, respectively.

Fredrik Malmberg & Mark Wheeler Wheeler and Malmberg produced Blood Drive on SyFy, and appear to be working toward the production of a Dark Agnes series later this year (Note: We will have to research this further!). It is worth mentioning that Malmberg was credited as a producer on the 2011 Conan the Barbarian film.

The Series
Details pertaining to the show are scant at this early stage. Condal and Sapochnik are evidently fans of the original Howard stories, and seem to be interested in staying true to the source material. Thus far, there has been no announcement regarding how many episodes will be produced for the inaugural season, no details pertaining to budgets, filming locations, casting, and no inkling about who might be in the running to portray Conan. The only tidbit of information we have is the following, from the Deadline article.

 “Created and written by Condal, Conan retells the classic character’s story via a return to his literary origins. Driven out of his tribal homelands, Conan wanders the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage.”

It isn't much, but let's chew on that for a bit. Although Conan’s journey throughout the Howard stories doesn’t seem to be an overt search for purpose, he does encounter many “civilized” people who make assumptions about his intellect, values, and potential based upon his Cimmerian roots. How will the show mark a return to the character’s literary roots, and how much will Condal have to write original material to bridge any canonical gaps? Given that our knowledge of Conan’s early life is limited, this implies that the show might take some creative liberties in order to fill the gaps in the original Robert E. Howard chronology, or lean on other sources such as the Dark Horse or Marvel Conan comics. Further, fans of the original stories will know that placing the chronicles of Conan’s life into a specific, concrete order is difficult. Howard wrote the stories in no particular order, as they came to him, or in his words,

“In writing these yarns I’ve always felt less as creating them than as if I were simply chronicling his adventures as he told them to me. That’s why they skip about so much, without following a regular order.” (Letter to P. Schuyler Miller, March 10 1936). 

In many ways, this letter might serve as a platform for speculation about how Condal might approach the upcoming series and fill in some of the chronological gaps in Conan’s story. For example, we know from this same letter than Conan was literally born on the battlefield, that during the raid at Venarium Conan was 15, that he stood six feet and weighed 180 lbs, and “lacked much of having his full growth” (detailed in the story Beyond the Black River, covered in Season 1, Episode 19 of The Cromcast). We also learn that Conan is roughly 17 years old during the events of The Tower of the Elephant, which Howard refers to as his introduction to the public. Conan’s literary chronology culminates in the events of The Hour of the Dragon, during which he was about 44 of 45 years of age.

Just as interesting as what Howard says about Conan’s life is what Howard doesn’t say, and a close reading of this letter reveals that even Howard did not know all of the details of Conan’s biography. He provides glimpses of adventures that occur between the landmark stories, tantalizing clues about Conan’s undocumented adventures and travels throughout the world of the Hyborian Age, before taking the crown of Aquilonia and after. Even Conan’s ultimate fate is left unwritten and murky, lost to the pages of history in Howard’s fictional world. You can read the letter in Del Rey’s The Conquering Sword of Conan, or access a copy online.

Next time, some ideas about ways the series could be structured, literary descriptions vs. pop culture depictions of Conan, and casting speculation begins!

Howard & Tolkien. Biography & Criticism.

Greetings, Cromrades!

Josh here. I have some thoughts to share and questions to ask, regarding various approaches to literary criticism. Recently, a friend recommended the podcast "There and Back Again" which is an excellent critical exploration of Tolkien's works. In the first episode, host Alastair briefly touches on Tolkien's biography, and leaps into an interesting discussion about two works that provide some basis on Tolkien's approach to discussing literature, his seminal essay "On Fairy Stories" and the wonderful poem "Mythopoeia". One quote in particular from "On Fairy Stories" seems pertinent for literary criticism.

"So with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say: “We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.” Though, oddly enough, Dasent by “the soup” meant a mishmash of bogus pre-history founded on the early surmises of Comparative Philology; and by “desire to see the bones” he meant a demand to see the workings and the proofs that led to these theories. By “the soup” I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by “the bones” its sources or material—even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup."

 J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"

Tolkien's approach to literary criticism is to avoid seeing "the bones", apparently referring to biographic information about the author, though criticism of the "soup as soup", or levied at the writing itself is okay. Tolkien also dislikes allegory. 

“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring 

Now, those of you who have been following the show know that our approach to discussing Howard's stories relies at least in part on Howard's biography. Indeed, early 20th century Texas looms large in Howard's works. Moreover, in the Afterword of "Blood & Thunder", Howard scholar and biographer Mark Finn says:

"One cannot write about Robert E. Howard without writing about Texas in some way. This is inevitable, and particularly so when discussing any aspect of Howard's personal history. To ignore the presence of the Lone Star State in Robert E. Howard's life and writing invites, at the very least, a few wrong-headed conclusions, and at the worst, abject character assassination."

Mark Finn, "Blood & Thunder, The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard 

Arguably, one gets a greater sense of the depth and breadth of meaning in stories such as "Beyond the Black River" with some knowledge of the Texas history that inspired them. Knowing that Howard had complex views on the nature of civilization and its relationship with a more barbaric human condition provides an additional layer of richness to his stories. Though, by placing Howard's bibliography in context of his biography, are we not explicitly studying the bones from which the soup of his stories were made? Is there some quality that Howard's stories possess that makes them conducive for biographical discussion? Should we follow the words of Tolkien, and consider the stories on their own, or as Tolkien put it, consider the "the soup as soup"?

What do you think? 

-Josh