Over on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum, ne’er-do-well and Howard biographer, Mark Finn, is raising a ruckus. On that forum he has started a topic about the forthcoming Conan movie. Apparently, the script leaked earlier this week was the last straw. Mark had this to say, in a direct appeal to the management at Paradox/CPI:

There is an old Jewish saying: “If three people tell you you’re drunk, lie down.” The meaning, of course, is that there is wisdom in crowds. You cannot have missed the online eruptions that have taken place in the past two weeks with the leaking of the casting considerations for the Conan movie, nor the plot synopsis that just hit the boards.

I do not write this post lightly, nor do I write it tongue in cheek. I am sincerely, urgently asking you to scrap your current plans for the Conan movie and please start over. I know there is considerable economic pressure to pay back investors and companies, and the conventional wisdom in Hollywood is to play it safe. I can understand that, but if you produce a Conan movie such as we’ve seen snippets of online, you will destroy any credibility that the last ten years of publishing and scholarship have so carefully and precariously built up.

It’s probably inevitable that some changes would occur from printed page to silver screen, but what we’re all currently looking at bears absolutely no resemblance to Conan as he’s been defined in fiction, and to be honest, this strays pretty far afield from even the first Conan movie, too.

My recommendations (and I make them in the hopes that you want a viable franchise that you can build on over time):

1. Stop the current production.

2. Get an REH expert in the same room with the scriptwriters. Have them read the books and instruct them that the Conan stories will serve as the building blocks for the movie, and nothing else.

3. Use this film as a chance to reinvent the pop cultural idea of Conan.

Look at Casino Royale. Batman Begins. Pirates of the Carribean. All of these films took dead characters, dead franchises, and dead genres and reinvigorated them by not playing it safe. Even fans of Conan the Barbarian don’t want a rehash of that. We are twenty years older now, and we need something more sophisticated. Bryan Singer learned that the hard way with Superman Returns. This can NOT be a nostalgia project.

We are counting on you. All of us fans have supported your efforts in the past. We have beat the drum and we have consumed and we have become advocates and evangelists for this company because we believed you when you told us you were going to take care of these properties. All I’m asking for now is that you listen to us and trust our opinions on this matter. 

Finn asks all members of the forum (if they agree) to “sign” his petition by posting a reply. Whether Mark’s initiative can have any effect is debatable. It is quite likely that CPI has no real say at this point. Still, there’s damned sure no harm in trying.