Cinefantastique Online

Variety reports that production company NuImage/Millennium Films has struck a deal with distributor Lionsgate for a new film based on Robert E. Howard’s sword-and-sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. With a screenplay by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, the film is supposed to begin production later this year, but that depends on the writers’ strike. (There is a chance that NuImage and/or Lionsgate may sign a separate deal with the WGA.)

NuImage chief Avi Lerner estimates that the film could cost $100-million. (That sounds like a rather steep price tag for an independent production that will be released not by one of the major Hollywood Studios.) No word on who will be cast in the title role.