40 years ago, the unlikely acting career of then-bodybuilding champion Arnold Schwarzenegger went off with a bang inConan the Barbarian(1982). Based on Robert E. Howard’s character of the same name from 1930s pulp magazines, Arnold’s epic sword and sorcery film was helmed by writer-director John Milius, the militant filmmaker best known for writing the Oscar-nominated screenplayApocalypse Now(1979) for fellow “Movie Brat” Francis Ford Coppola. But in the end, Milius would share a co-screenwriting credit onConan the BarbarianwithOliver Stone.
Stone penned an earlier draft in 1978 as the first of several studio assignments that would one day feel out of step with the politically-charged writer-director the world would soon celebrate forfilms likePlatoon(1986),Wall Street(1987),Born on the Fourth of July(1989), andJFK(1991). At the time, hisConan the Barbarianscript was titled simply asConan. But the title is just about the only thing simple about this early draft.
Stone’sConanwas a studio executive’s worst nightmare. The script called for a nearly four hour runtime, epic battle sequences, countless extras, live animals, excessive costumes and props, and one expensive set piece after another. His vision was doomed to be rewritten for budgetary constraints. However, seemingly none of this entered into Stone’s thinking at the time, as he wrote hisConanscript while under the influence of cocaine and downers. And it shows.
Oliver Stone Believed in Arnold Schwarzenegger Before Many in Hollywood
Charles Bronson was originally the front-runner to star as the titular barbarian. But after watching a rough cut of docudramaPumping Iron(1977), the originalConanproducers Edward R. Pressman and Edward Summer knew they had found their man. With a godlike body that won him the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition six years in a row, Schwarzenegger embodied Conan as close as humanly possible. With his long brunet hair and leather headband, he looked as if he had stepped right off the pages of the Marvel Comics run from the 1970s.
In spite of Schwarzenegger’s uncanny physical resemblance to the Conan character, there was one little snag. No one doubted he had the look. But many involved in the project had their reservations about Arnold’s molasses-thick Austrian accent. At the time it seemed to Schwarzenegger that all of Hollywood shared this cold apprehension. Speaking toGQin 2019 about his most iconic characters, Schwarzenegger said:
“I was told many times by manager and agents and studio executives that [my career] would never happen, that someone with an accent like me has never become a real leading man and a big star in America, that Americans like to hear people that sound like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but not like me.”
Luckily there were a few players in Hollywood who did believe in the Austrian bodybuilder’s potential as a leading man. Among those who never doubted Schwarzenegger was theConanscreenwriter Oliver Stone. In his autobiographyChasing the Light(2020), Stone said:
“[Schwarzenegger] possessed that singular quality the movies worship: charisma, which radiated from him with his ready smile and sense of humor. Strangers were drawn to him immediately.”
Stone’s conviction in Schwarzenegger’s ability to pull off the role was even stronger than Arnold’s Germanic accent. In fact, Stone crafted Conan’s dialogue in his screenplay to Arnold’s actual voice, having Schwarzenegger read aloud from lines of Marvel’sConancomics. As a result, Stone’sConanscript has its share of dialogue as corny as those from the Marvel Comics run. Still, it’s a safe bet that fans of Milius’ finished film would jump at the chance to hear Arnold deliver some of Stone’s corniest lines. Imagine that heavy Austrian accent dropping a line like the one on page 111 of Stone’s screenplay:
CONAN: “I was born in the middle of a battlefield. The first sound I heard was a scream.”
Imagine Arnold’s delivery of the line on page 130 when, in the midst of the film’s final battle, Conan’s love interest and blonde female warrior Valeria slays a Pig Mutant (Stone’s script has plenty of those) with her sword “in a magnificent arc” and Conan says to her with “eyes blazing with attraction:”
CONAN: “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go to hell with!”
VALERIA: “You’re a liar!”
CONAN: “And you’re beautiful!”
As hilarious as Stone’s lines would have sounded in Arnold’s broken English, Milius gave the Austrian actor just enough ridiculous dialogue to draw eyebrows from film critics. Take the most iconic line (and most mocked for Schwarzenegger’s accent) fromConan the Barbarianwhich was lifted from a Ghenghis Khan speech about his idea of the good life. When he is asked in Milius’ film “What is best in life?” by a Mongol General character, Conan says:
“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”
Stone and Milius’Conanscripts (as well as many of their other films) share asimilarly masculine approach, especially in terms of over-the-top dialogue. Still, there are important differences betweentheir visions forConan the Barbarian. And the cocaine Stone was doing at the time is certainly one of them.
Oliver Stone’s Conan Script Was Post-Apocalyptic
For his plot, Stone took several cues fromHoward’s early Conan storieslike the novellaA Witch Shall Be Born(1934) and short storyBlack Colossus(1933), both of which were published in the pulp fiction magazine Weird Tales.
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As opposed to Milius’ finished film which takes place in the vaguely distant past, Stone’sConanscreenplay is set in a post-apocalyptic future wherein Conan leads an army in an epic battle against a 10,000-strong horde of half-animal, half-human mutants. But this battle was not to be waged specifically against Thulsa Doom, played memorably by James Earl Jones as the central villain in Milius’ film. While Stone’s script also opens with the raid on young Conan’s village like Milius’, it is not Thulsa Doom who is responsible for the death of his family. Stone’s script is not really a tale of revenge like Milius’ but, rather, Conan’s rise from slavery to leading a band of mercenaries and a ravaged army into an epic, climactic battle.
Oliver Stone On Cocaine and Conan
Milius described Stone’s early draft as a “total drug fever dream”. And he wasn’t kidding. When Stone was asked byTotal Filmabout how he quit cocaine before tackling his next script (Scarface, which would be directed by Brian DePalma in 1983), Stone said:
I wanted to get even with [cocaine]! Because it [expletive] kicked my [expletive]! I wasn’t deeply into it, but enough that I wanted my money back [laughs]. I had been hooked for a year or two and I decided to kick it and I moved to France, which was the best thing I ever did. I cut all my connections to LA, had a new life and wrote Scarface in an apartment in Paris. I wrote it straight which was good because I don’t think cocaine helps writing. It’s very destructive to the brain cells. I think my writing was getting shallower.
“Shallow” is an interesting way to describe his own writing from this period. Especially in light of scenes like the one on page 67 of hisConanscript, set in one of Stone’s many debauchery-filled set pieces:
“A GIRL runs out in erotic clothing with TWO large muzzled BEARS… MUSICIANS strike up a raunchy beat - cymbal, drum, flute-like instruments… and: THE GIRL and THE BEARS dance - the girl wildly twisting to the appreciation of the crowd as DRUNKS at the edge of the dance floor stumble into the dancing bears, and the atmosphere seems to be getting wilder and wilder…”
It may not be apparent from a brief synopsis of its epic plot points, but Stone went on a description-happy rampage. He filled the pages of his script with grandiose visions of lavish set pieces, creature makeup, and complex effects shots transcribed in vivid detail.
Oliver Stone’s Conan Script Feels Like a Drug Dream
What do you get when you take inspiration from pulp fiction fantasy tales, Hieronymus Bosch’s apocalyptic paintings, William Blake’s poetry, Marvel Comics, the real-life voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, of course, a lot of cocaine? AConan the Barbarianscript that feels like it was written by someone on cocaine. And Stone’s awkward use of poetic prose in the screenplay runs even deeper than just Blake. On page 45, when Conan fights a giant serpent, Stone referencesDante’s Infernoby literally inserting a quote from the 14th century epic poem.
There is perhaps no better example of Stone’s excessive descriptions and fixation with sex, drugs, live animals, part-animal prosthetics, and countless extras than on pages 96 and 97 when a beggar, who hunts big rats similar to the “rodents of unusual size” fromThe Princess Bride(1987) in underground tunnels, has agreed to show Conan a hidden entrance to a palace filled with mutants and animals engaged in debauchery of every sort.
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Stone’sConanscreenplay reads as if Hollywood commissioned a drunken Jack Kerouac to write a remake ofGunga Din(1939). It’s like if Denis Villeneuve decided that hisDune(2021) adaptation could use some extra scenes with concubines. Or if George Lucas insisted on doubling the runtime ofThe Return of the Jedi(1983) and filling it with set pieces as expensive as Jabba’s palace. If Oliver StonewroteThe Empire Strikes Back(1980)with half the bravado and cocaine that he wroteConanwith, then he would have wanted the Dagobah set to have twice as many live snakes. He’d have wanted as many live snakes as Spielberg would soon use in the tomb set piece forRaiders of the Lost Ark(1981).
Oliver Stone’s Conan Would Have Cost a Fortune
Stone’s script was destined for a rewrite from his first pass. It was doomed from the page count alone: 141 pages (90 to 120 pages is the standard). Had Stone’sConanscript actually been attempted, it would have been around three to four hours long, and with the insanely large battle sequences and set pieces it would have easily cost more than twice its $20 million budget at the time. Even Stone admitted to Total Film that it would have probably cost upwards of “$50 million” to bring his coked-out vision to the screen. And Stone “had a vision of 12 [Conan] movies, like aBondseries,” where Schwarzenegger would return every few years for another installment.
Not only would this series of 12Conan the Barbarianfilms fail to materialize, but in 1979, the originalConanproducer Pressman was stuck with his back against the wall. Nobody in Hollywood wanted to foot the bill for his swords and sorcery epic with Schwarzenegger’s low profile and Stone’s bonkers script. And this from a film industry which was greenlighting fantasy films left and right in the wake ofthe originalStar Wars(1977). So Pressman turned to the European market and sold the rights toConan the Barbarianto the one man who couldn’t pump outStar Warsripoffs fast enough, Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis. Dino, in turn, would quickly hire John Milius to rewrite Stone’s screenplay. And the rest is history.
