by Ben Bussey

No, this doesn’t have jack shit to do with this Jay Leno thing you Americans seem to be fretting about. I’m English, therefore I neither know nor give a toss. This is to do with a far more important Conan – the barbarian/destroyer of pulp legend. After untold eons of development hell, his tale is to be told again, and the list of main contenders for the role has come to our attention.

According to Empire, it’s between these three:

In the blue corner is Jason Momoa: the dreadlocked Hawaiian best known as the badass “melee warrior” Ronan Dex in Stargate Atlantis.

In the red corner is Kellan Lutz, who was most recently seen as the vampire Emmett Cullen in Twilight and New Moon.

And in news broken by his own fansite (which we hope is actually accurate and not just wishful thinking), in the I’ve-worked-with-Marcus-Nispel-before corner is Jared Padelecki, star of TV’s Supernatural and last year’s Friday 13th.

I’m not going to lie to you – I’m no authority on Conan. I like the Arnie movies and I’ve read and enjoyed some of the Dark Horse comics, but have yet to actually tackle Robert E Howard’s original stories, though I’ve long been interested in doing so. But I doubt I’m alone in this. Conan is one of those characters that is so strong, so archetypal that we all have some innate concept of who he is, regardless of how close our relationship is to the source material. And… does that concept look anything like these guys?

Momoa – okay, not a bad choice. His casting would inspire a few idiotic rants about ethnicity from the same dolts who insisted Kingpin couldn’t be black and James Bond couldn’t be blonde, but based on what I’ve seen of the guy in action on Stargate Atlantis he seems pretty good at playing badass, and obviously he’s got the build for it. Lutz – my gut feeling is to berate him as a pretty boy, but I can’t really judge him as I’ve never seen his work. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and won’t hold being in Twilight against him – we’ve all gotta eat, after all.

But… Padalecki?!

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Divide Keanu Reeves by Paul Walker to the power of Chris Klein, and you’d still have more charisma than that guy. He’s one of the many reasons Friday the 13th ’09 was so pisspoor, and in no way shape or form is he the right guy to play Conan. Still, as Empire mention, the only confirmation of his name being in the ring is via his own fansite, so we might have nothing to worry about.

Actually, what the hell am I saying? Of course we have plenty to worry about. Marcus Nispel is directing this film. The man’s track record speaks for itself: he can make it glossy, cast pretty people and throw a little blood into the mix, but if you’re looking for a film of substance, heart and soul you’d do better to search the back catalogue of the Wayans brothers.

Grunt. Sigh. Oh well, we’ll always have the Arnie movies.